JCU ranks with the best

First published 15 August, 2012

James Cook University is one of only three Australian universities outside the capital cities to have made it into the Top 500 in the 2012 Academic Ranking of World Universities released today.

Nineteen Australian universities made the list, and James Cook University was ranked equal 10th in Australia behind the old established Group of Eight universities and Macquarie University.

Among the 19, only JCU, the University of Newcastle and the University of Wollongong are based outside the capital cities. All three are grouped in the 301-400 band.

In Queensland, the University of Queensland was again ranked in the top 100 and Griffith University joined the JCU grouping.

JCU has been ranked in the top 400 universities in the world for the past four years.

JCU Vice Chancellor Professor Sandra Harding said that the rankings announced today confirming the University’s position in the world was a welcome birthday present for the Cairns campus which is celebrating its 25th birthday.

“In 2010, JCU commemorated the 40th year since its founding and next year we will celebrate the 10th anniversary of our Singapore campus, so in terms of universities we are still relatively young, although in Australia we are part of the second wave of universities created in the 1960s and 70s,” Professor Harding said.

“To achieve the world status we now have as a regional one is a tribute to the work over the years of the University’s academics – work that is continuing and growing as we pursue our aim of creating a brighter future for life in the tropics world-wide through graduates and discoveries that make a difference.

“It is great that a regional university is sharing the status and prestige along with many much older, much bigger and more established universities,” Professor Harding said, “and it shows that a regional location is no bar to excellence.”

“With 19 Australian institutions listed in the Top 500, not only is tertiary education in this country of the highest order but also that it is not limited to the Group of Eight sandstone universities.”

Published today by the Center for World-Class Universities of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the ARWU has been recognized as the precursor of global university rankings and the most trustworthy list.

ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution.

More than 1200 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published.

First published in 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities and the Institute of Higher Education of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China, and updated on an annual basis, the rankings  since 2009 have been published by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, a fully independent organization.

Contact: JCU Media Jim O’Brien 07 4781 4822 or 0418 892449

Issued: August 15, 2012