Most Australian universities that ranked in the recent QS-2024 ranking have experienced a sharp improvement (34 out of 38) in their ranking places compared with last year. Among the top 10 Australian universities (Table 1 below), Macquarie University gained the highest number of places (65), followed by UTS (47) and UNSW (26). Nine of
Most Australian universities that ranked in the recent QS-2024 ranking have experienced a sharp improvement (34 out of 38) in their ranking places compared with last year. Among the top 10 Australian universities (Table 1 below), Macquarie University gained the highest number of places (65), followed by UTS (47) and UNSW (26). Nine of these ten universities have improved their rankings compared to last year, except for the Australian National University, which lost four positions (30th in 2023 to 34th in 2024).
Table 1: Ranking of top 10 Australian universities in 2023 and 2024
| University_name | 2024_ranking | 2023_ranking | Rank_improvment |
| University of Melbourne | 14 | 33 | 19 |
| UNSW | 19 | 45 | 26 |
| University of Sydney | 19 | 41 | 22 |
| Australian National University | 34 | 30 | -4 |
| Monash University | 42 | 57 | 15 |
| University of Queensland | 43 | 50 | 7 |
| University of Western Australia | 72 | 90 | 18 |
| University of Adelaide | 89 | 109 | 20 |
| University of Technology Sydney | 90 | 137 | 47 |
| Macquarie University | 130 | 195 | 65 |
QS incorporated three new measures in its recent ranking system (International research network, Employment outcomes and Sustainability, each with a 5% weight) in addition to the previous six measures: Academic reputation (30%), Employer reputation (15%), Faculty-student ratio (10%), Citations per faculty (20%), International faculty ratio (5%) and Internation student ratio (5%). To make the overall weight 100%, it deduced 10% weight from Academic reputation and Faculty-student ratio compared to the last year and added 5% weight to the Employer reputation. The importance of the other three metrics (Citations per faculty, International faculty ratio and International student ratio) remains the same between the 2023 and 2024 rankings.
An obvious question arises: Have Australian universities done an excellent job over the core ranking metrics last year, leading them to a significant ranking improvement? Unfortunately, the answer is a ‘no’. Most of the top 10 universities experienced a falling ranking in the first four crucial metrics (Academic reputation, Employer reputation, Citations per faculty and Faculty-student ratio), each weighing ≥10% (Table 2). Among the nine universities that experienced a rank increase, three (University of Melbourne, University of Sydney and University of Western Australia) experienced a decline in their ranking in these four metrics. None of them experienced growth in these metrics – only Monash University, the University of Adelaide and the University of Technology Sydney showed ranking improvement in two metrics. In the remaining five metrics, including the newly introduced three, Australian universities scored well on average compared with their 2023 ranking.
Table 2: Comparison of ranking of the top 10 Australian universities against the top four metrics between 2023 and 202. Shaded cells indicate a ranking fall of the corresponding country against the underlying metric between 2023 and 2024. Values within the bracket represent the corresponding global ranking against the metric.
| University_name | Academic_reputation | Employer_repuation | Citations_per_faculty | Faculty-student_ratio | ||||
| 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | 2024 | 2023 | |
| University of Melbourne | 98.4 (21) | 98.6 (20) | 92.3 (45) | 94.9 (34) | 92.1 (69) | 95 (45) | 15.4 (701+) | 17.9 (601+) |
| UNSW | 89.7 (45) | 89 (46) | 88.1 (55) | 91.1 (53) | 95.9 (47) | 97.6 (28) | 18.2 (701+) | 16.8 (601+) |
| University of Sydney | 96 (31) | 96.2 (30) | 87.7 (57) | 91.7 (49) | 93.5 (63) | 92.1 (56) | 11.8 (701+) | 15.6 (601+) |
| Australian National University | 93.2 (37) | 93.6 (35) | 70.2 (102) | 70.1 (95) | 92.8 (65) | 99.3 (16) | 34.9 (455) | 38 (404) |
| Monash University | 88.4 (49) | 87.6 (50) | 75.2 (84) | 80.8 (68) | 88.4 (81) | 79.3 (113) | 9.6 (701+) | 11.2 (601+) |
| University of Queensland | 87.1 (52) | 86.6 (52) | 73.7 (89) | 75.6 (83) | 87 (84) | 90.8 (62) | 21.6 (635) | 20.2 (601+) |
| University of Western Australia | 56.2 (138) | 55.6 (137) | 44.6 (200) | 49.9 (175) | 98.9 (23) | 98.9 (19) | 16.5 (701+) | 21.8 (601+) |
| University of Adelaide | 54.2 (144) | 52.3 (146) | 36.5 (267) | 35.2 (279) | 87.1 (83) | 94.5 (46) | 16.2 (701+) | 17.2 (601+) |
| University of Technology Sydney | 43.4 (195) | 41.8 (199) | 57.8 (143) | 66.1 (110) | 95.3 (52) | 90.4 (63) | 9 (701+) | 9.6 (601+) |
| Macquarie University | 31.6 (276) | 30.9 (275) | 41 (228) | 48.9 (182) | 81.3 (105) | 74.6 (126) | 10.3 (701+) | 13.6 (601+) |
All Australian top 10 universities experienced a significant ranking fall in the Faculty-student ratio metric, although the raw score increased for UNSW and the University of Queensland (last two columns of Table 2). Most of the top 10 universities experienced a falling ranking in Academic reputation, Employer reputation and Citations per faculty indices. Moreover, they all went through a ranking fall in the Faculty-student ratio.
So, the question is – How did Australian universities experience such a ranking rise? The reason is the weight reduction for a metric (Faculty-student ratio) in which Australian universities traditionally score low and allocate this weight to another new metric in which they did very well. The weight for the Faculty-student ratio metric has been reduced from 20% in 2023 to 10% in 2024, which acted as a tonic for the recent ranking burst of Australian universities.
Overall, Australian universities, especially the top 10, revealed a worse performance in the top four crucial metrics in most cases compared to the last year. However, they experienced a ranking rise only due to a significant weight reduction to a low-performing metric. Their total academic performance did not improve compared to the previous year. There is no room for complacency about their QS-2024 ranking. They need to work harder and set up a strategy to improve the score on the Faculty-student ratio metric. I am sceptical that Australian universities will experience the same ranking rise this year through other University ranking systems (e.g., ARWU and THE).
Data source: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2024
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