News

Melbourne joins world's top 50 universities

Media Release, Friday 5 November 2004

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Melbourne, Professor Kwong Lee Dow has welcomed The Times Higher Education Supplement's (THES) listing of the University in the top 50 universities in the world.

The THES survey has listed Melbourne at number 22 . In number one position was Harvard University with Oxford and Cambridge fifth and sixth respectively.

The THES has ranked 200 universities in 29 countries on the basis of a survey of 1,300 academics in 88 countries while also taking into account cited research produced, the ratio of academic staff to student numbers and an institution's attractiveness to foreign students and internationally renowned academics.

Noting that the THES is a highly-respected British journal, Professor Lee Dow believes its survey will be taken seriously.

He says that the University of Melbourne's strength is broad in terms of the number of fields in which it has internationally recognized people.

"In such a survey, the University of Melbourne will be well-known for its research and will also come up well in its attractiveness to international students."

Professor Lee Dow said that while the University knows where it is positioned amongst Australian universities, it is very pleasing to see that it is so well-positioned in the world's top 200 universities.