| image = The University of Melbourne Coat of Arms.svg

| image_upright = .7

| established =

| type = Public research university

| academic_affiliation =

| endowment = AU$1.287 billion (2022)

| chancellor = Jane Hansen

| vice_chancellor = Glyn Davis (interim)

| provost =

| vice_president =

| administrative_staff = 5,328 (FTE, 2023)

| academic_staff = 5,186 (FTE, 2023)

| coordinates =

| colours = Traditional Heritage Heritage Dark

| campus = Urban and regional with multiple sites<br /> (Parkville Campus)<br /> (Total)

| accreditation = TEQSA

| affiliations =

| sporting_affiliations =

| sports_nickname =

| mascot = Barry the Bear

| website =

| logo = The University of Melbourne Logo.svg

| logo_alt = This is the logo of the university.

| logo_size = 125px

| footnotes =

The University of Melbourne (colloquially known as Melbourne University) is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in the state of Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb north of Melbourne's central business district, with several other campuses located across the state of Victoria.

Incorporated in the 19th century by the colony of Victoria, the University of Melbourne is one of Australia's six sandstone universities and a member of the Group of Eight, Universitas 21, Washington University's McDonnell International Scholars Academy, and the Association of Pacific Rim Universities. Since 1872, many independent residential colleges have become affiliated with the university, providing accommodation for students and faculty, and academic, sporting and cultural programs. There are nine colleges and five university-owned halls of residence located on the main campus and in nearby suburbs.

Four Australian prime ministers and five governors-general have graduated from the University of Melbourne. Ten Nobel Laureates have taught, studied and researched at the University of Melbourne, the most of any Australian university.

The university comprises ten separate academic units and is associated with numerous institutes and research centres, including the Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research and the Grattan Institute. The university has fifteen graduate schools, including the Melbourne Business School, the Melbourne Law School, the Melbourne Veterinary School, and the Melbourne Medical School.

History

thumb|right|Old Quad, the original building of the University of Melbourne

Foundations of the university

thumb|The original University of Melbourne building, 1857, Victoria Illustrated collection, State Library Victoria.

thumb|University of Melbourne Botany School in 1958.

The University of Melbourne was established following a proposal by the Hugh Childers, the Auditor-General and Finance Minister, in his first Budget Speech on 4November 1852, who set aside a sum of £10,000 for the establishment of a university. The university was established by Act of Incorporation on 22 January 1853, with power to confer degrees in arts, medicine, laws and music. The act provided for an annual endowment of £9,001, while a special grant of £20,000 was made for buildings that year. The foundation stone was laid on 3July 1854, and on the same day the foundation stone for the State Library. Classes commenced in 1855 with three professors, all of whom, like the founding University Chancellor, Redmond Barry, were from Ireland. There were sixteen students; of this body of students only four graduated. The original buildings were officially opened by the Lieutenant Governor of the Colony of Victoria, Sir Charles Hotham, on 3October 1855.

A law school was established in 1857 at the Parkville campus, following which a Faculty of Engineering and School of Medicine were established in 1861 and 1862 respectively. The university's residential colleges were first opened on the northern aspect of the campus in 1872, divided between the four main Christian denominations.

The first chancellor, Redmond Barry (later Sir Redmond), held the position until his death in 1880. The inauguration of the university was made possible by the wealth resulting from Victoria's gold rush. The institution was designed to be a "civilising influence" at a time of rapid settlement and commercial growth. In 1881, the admission of women was seen as a victory over the more conservative ruling council. Julia 'Bella' Guerin graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in 1883, and became the first woman to graduate from an Australian University.

In 1940, the first issue of Historical Studies: Australia and New Zealand, now Australian Historical Studies, was published by the Department of History.

1980s – 2000s: Consolidation, expansion and the Melbourne Model

Expansion of the university increased significantly during the 1980s and 1990s, as the university amalgamated with a number of tertiary colleges. In 1988 the Melbourne Teachers' College was brought into the Faculty of Education, and the amalgamation lead to the formation of a distinctly new Faculty of Education. The College of Advanced Education was incorporated into the university in 1989. During this period, more students than ever before were attending the university. The university had expanded its student population to beyond 35,000 students. Such amalgamations continued into the 1990s, with the Victorian College of the Arts affiliation with the University of Melbourne in 1992. This increased the number of campuses for the University of Melbourne.

In 2008, Vice Chancellor Glyn Davis introduced a major restructure of the university's curriculum. The new structure, named the Melbourne Model, replaced traditional undergraduate specialist degrees with a two-degree undergraduate/graduate structure. Over 100 undergraduate degrees were replaced with six generalist degrees, with students taking a general bachelor's degree before specialising in either a professional or research graduate course. Various groups, including trade and student unions,

academics,

and some students criticised the introduction of the new structure, citing job and subject cuts, and a risk of "dumbing down" content. A group of students produced a satirical musical about the model's adoption. A dean from Monash University rejected the model and argued it led to a reduction in student applications to the University of Melbourne. The University of Western Australia is the only other Australian university to adopt the structure. Davis also introduced reforms to university governance, making faculty deans more responsible for producing a financial surplus. At the same time in the ten years to 2018 the university embarked on a large capital works program, spending $2 billion on new buildings across the university's campuses. At the same time, there was controversy over the high salaries earned by the Vice Chancellor, with Davis earning $1.5 million in 2019, the most of any university head in Australia.

Like other Australian Universities, an extraordinary growth in international students took place at the University of Melbourne and meant the university became increasingly reliant on revenue from its overseas student cohort. Like many other institutions and workplaces, university faculty members elected to use telecommunication platforms such as Zoom Video Communications, Microsoft Teams, or Skype to conduct live tutorials and provide interactive online learning experiences as a result of the suspension of face-to-face teaching during this time period.

In 2020 the university announced it was axing 450 staff in the institution's largest ever layoff of academic staff, despite a planned expenditure of $4.2 billion for capital works over the decade from 2020. Similarly, in semester two of 2021, the majority of teaching was once again moved to online delivery due to the outbreak of the Delta variant of COVID-19 and ensuing lockdowns in Victoria. In response the university announced further job losses, despite the university running an $8m surplus in 2020. Eleven subjects were cut as part of the savings measures including a number of specialist scientific subjects, a move criticised by Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty and others. The halting of international student arrivals as part of the Australian pandemic response was projected to cause a major loss in revenue for the university.

In 2019 and 2020, the university was also involved in wage theft and underpayment controversies towards its large teaching workforce of casual staff, and began repaying casual tutors for unpaid marking. The university was accused of owing Faculty of Arts teaching staff an estimated $6 million. This followed a campaign by the National Tertiary Education Union's University of Melbourne Casuals Branch, which engaged in a series of protests, including one outside the Vice Chancellor's residence. The university came under sustained criticism over the poor employment and financial conditions of its highly casualised academic workforce. During the 2010s, the university increasingly casualised its workforce, with reports that between 47 and 72 per cent of its 11,000 employees were on casual contracts by 2023.

In 2021 the State Government granted planning approval for a new campus for the university at the urban renewal precinct Fishermans Bend. The $2 billion campus, planned to open in 2026, will focus on engineering and forms part of a large capital works program by the university, which included the demolition of the Student Union Building and the creation of a new student precinct on the south-east corner of the Parkville campus.

In June 2021, a new speech policy was implemented with the stated purpose of protecting transgender individuals within the university while preserving freedom of speech principles for staff and students. In 2023, windows of the university's Sidney Myer Asia Centre Building were broken and the building was graffitied with a message accusing the university of contributing to an unsafe environment for transgender individuals.

In August 2023, all National Tertiary Education Union members who work in the Faculty of Arts, Melbourne Law School, the Victorian College of the Arts School of Art, student services, stagecraft and the library will start a-five to seven day strike. Union members are seeking a 15% increase in wages over the course of 3 years.

2024 – present: Student occupations and conclusion of Maskell's tenure

On 24 April 2024, students occupied the South Lawn of Parkville campus in solidarity with international, grass-roots, student-lead pro-Palestine movements. Concerns arose as students sought to keep the university accountable in its investments. More specifically, to disclose research and investment ties with Israeli Government companies, stocks, or bonds benefiting from the occupation of Palestine and the Gaza humanitarian crisis since 7 October 2023. Students occupied the Arts West building, "renaming" it Mahmoud's hall after a Palestinian student who was expected to commence his studies at the university died in the Gaza war.

On 29 April 2024, it was announced that Vice-Chancellor Maskell would step down from his position, partway through his second term, by early 2025.

Despite student efforts to comply with university policies while exercising their right to protest, on 14 May the university issued a breach notice, warning students of potential expulsions and faculty of disciplinary actions if protest activities continued. The notice also referenced the possibility of state law enforcement involvement, though no intervention occurred as the protests remained peaceful.

On the evening of 22 May, University of Melbourne for Palestine representatives announced that an agreement had been made with the university administration to disband encampments in exchange for disclosure of endowment investments and research ties with weapons manufacturers. However, as of 23 May, protesters and the university are at a stalemate, citing a lack of correspondence from the latter, with encampments remaining in place.

The university became subject to an investigation by the Office of the Victorian Information Commissioner into whether it breached privacy laws by using surveillance technology to identify students who participated in the protests. The Victorian Information Commissioner found that the university had breached student privacy by using the location data of students connected to the university’s internet network to identify those involved in the Gaza war protests in May 2024. The university had used the data in disciplinary hearings against the students.

On 30 September 2024, it was announced that Emma Johnston would be appointed the university’s next Vice-Chancellor, succeeding Maskell. Johnston was the first woman to hold the position in the university’s history.

Campuses and buildings

thumb|Aerial panorama of University of Melbourne facing the city skyline, September 2023

thumb|Vertical panorama of University of Melbourne's Ormond College, September 2023

thumb|Old Arts Building (1919–1924) in Parkville Campus of University of Melbourne.

The university has three other campuses in metropolitan Melbourne, including at Burnley, Victoria, Southbank, and Werribee. The Burnley campus is where horticultural courses are taught. Performing arts, visual arts, film and television, and music courses are taught at the Southbank campus. Veterinary science is taught at the Werribee campus.

In regional Victoria, the Creswick and Dookie campuses are used for forestry and agriculture courses respectively. They previously housed several hundred residential students, but are now largely used for short courses and research. The Shepparton campus is home to the Rural Health Academic Centre for the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences.

The university is a part-owner of the Melbourne Business School, based at Parkville campus, which ranked 46th in the 2012 Financial Times global rankings.

A new campus located in Fishermans Bend is currently under planning, and construction may commence 2026. It will be used by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT) and the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning (ABP).

Parkville

thumb|Main entrance (Gate 10) to Parkville Campus of the University of Melbourne from Grattan Street

The Parkville campus is the primary campus of the university. Originally established in a large area north of Grattan Street in Parkville, the campus has expanded well beyond its boundaries, with many of its newly acquired buildings located in the nearby suburb of Carlton. The university is undertaking an "ambitious infrastructure program" to reshape campuses. The campus was founded in 1853, and is located just north of Melbourne's central business district. There is a diverse range of cafés, two gyms, five university libraries, a bank branch, Australia Post parcel lockers, a bike shop, a boutique supermarket and a small pharmacy located on the Parkville campus. The campus is located within a broader knowledge precinct, which encompasses eight hospitals, and many other leading research institutes.

Several of the earliest campus buildings, such as the Old Quad and Baldwin Spencer buildings, feature period architecture in a Gothic revival style. The Old Quadrangle underwent extensive restoration in 2019 to return to elements of the original design, including a dedicated temporary exhibition space in the Treasury Gallery. The new Wilson Hall replaced the original Gothic Revival building which was destroyed by fire.

Recipients of the University of Melbourne Award (see below) are acknowledged by bronze commemorative plaques along Professors Walk on this campus.

The new Union and Guild Theatres are located within the University of Melbourne Arts & Cultural Building, while Open Stage is in the 757 Swanston Street building, both on the Parkville campus.

As of 2025, the Parkville Campus is accessible via Parkville railway station, as part of the Metro Tunnel project.

Southbank

thumb|The [[Elisabeth Murdoch (philanthropist)|Elisabeth Murdoch Building at the Victorian College of the Arts on St Kilda Road]]

The Southbank campus is home to the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, and is situated within Melbourne's creative arts precinct. Theatre and dance stages, film and television studios, visual arts studios, and concert halls are all located at the university's purpose-built creative arts home.

A$200 million major capital works project at the campus was completed in 2019. The project includes the construction of a new state-of-the-art conservatorium for music and the conversion of historically important buildings for use as education and research facilities.

In 2011, the Victorian State Government allocated $24 million to support arts education at the VCA. This was due in part to it coming together with the Conservatorium to form the then Faculty of the Victorian College of the Arts and the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.

Burnley

The Burnley campus is located within the suburb of Burnley in Melbourne, around 5&nbsp;km east of the Melbourne CBD. The campus is dedicated to both ornamental and environmental horticulture, and is surrounded by nine hectares of heritage-listed gardens. Creswick campus has been offering forest science education since 1910, and is Australia's only dedicated forest ecosystem science campus, which focuses on forest industry, conservation, and molecular biology research.

Shepparton

The Shepparton Medical Centre campus is located in Shepparton, nearly 200&nbsp;km north of Melbourne. The campus is part of the Melbourne Medical School, and the Shepparton base is home to the Shepparton Rural Clinical School. It provides fully furnished, subsidized, self-catered student accommodation on site at the Clinical School. The University of Melbourne Shepparton Medical Centre was the first purpose-built teaching clinic in Australia, and services Shepparton and surrounds with comprehensive primary healthcare.

Werribee

The Werribee campus, located about 30&nbsp;km south west of the city, is home to the Melbourne Veterinary School and hosts the final years of study in Victoria's only accredited veterinary course. In the late 2010s, the campus underwent an AU$63 million redevelopment to enhance facilities for pet treatment and the training of future veterinarians.

Fishermans Bend

A new engineering campus at Fishermans Bend is currently in the design phase. Construction was planned to begin in the mid-2020s, but in 2025, work was postponed for at least five years. The 7.2 hectare site, located in a renewal area set aside for industry and technology by the Victorian Government, will be used by the Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology (FEIT) and the Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning (ABP).

Former campuses

The university had a number of former campuses. These included numerous agricultural campuses that were part of VCAH upon its merger with the university in 1997. When the university ceased offering vocational education (TAFE) courses in agriculture in the mid-2000s, most of these sites were transferred to TAFE providers. These included the two Western District campuses, Glenormiston (transferred to South West TAFE) and Longerenong (transferred to SkillInvest); the McMillan campuses in Gippsland; and the Werribee-based Gilbert Chandler campus. In 2024, the University sold its Hawthorn campus, which had not been used for some time, in order to fund the construction of Australian Institute for Infectious Disease.

Governance and structure

University Council

Governance of the university is grounded in an act of parliament, the University of Melbourne Act 2009. The peak governing body is the "Council" the key responsibilities of which include appointing the vice-chancellor and principal, approving the strategic direction and annual budget, establishing operational policies and procedures and overseeing academic and commercial activities as well as risk management. The chair of the council is the "chancellor". The "academic board" oversees learning, teaching and research activities and provides advice to the council on these matters. The "committee of convocation" represents graduates and its members are elected in proportion to the number of graduates in each faculty.

The University of Melbourne's operations are governed through a hierarchy of delegations framework. A 13-member council is the university's governing body. It establishes the university's council, determines its core functions, and allows the university to enact subordinate legislation through statutes and regulations. Under legislative elements associated with the council, university policies exist as a formal statement of principle to regulate university operations. Under university policies, university processes exist to support workplace agreements, policy, and relevant legislation by noting day-to-day operation tasks and activities to be performed by staff.

Academic Board

The academic board is held responsible to the council for quality assurance in activities such as the maintenance of high standards in teaching, research and learning. The University of Melbourne Executive is the university's principal management committee. The university consists of academic and administrative structures. University leadership encompasses the chancellor, vice-chancellor and senior executives, who are responsible for the strategic vision of the university.

Faculties and departments

University of Melbourne is divided into nine faculties, which encompass all major departments of both research and teaching, as follows:

  • Faculty of Architecture, Building and Planning: Julie Willis
  • Faculty of Arts: Russell Goulbourne
  • Faculty of Business and Economics: Paul Kofman and Ian Harper (co-deans)
  • Faculty of Education: Marek Tesar
  • Faculty of Engineering and Information Technology: Mark Cassidy
  • Faculty of Fine Arts and Music: Marie Sierra
  • Melbourne Law School: Matthew Harding
  • Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences: Jane Gunn
  • Faculty of Science: Moira O'Bryan

Faculty of Arts

The arts faculty comprises five schools:

  • Asia Institute, for studies in Asian languages and cultures
  • School of Culture and Communication, including literary and cultural studies, art history and art curatorship, cinema and performance, media and communication, and Indigenous Australian studies
  • School of Historical and Philosophical Studies, which includes programs in Classics and Archaeology, Cultural Materials Conservation, History, History and Philosophy of Science, Jewish Culture and Society and Philosophy
  • School of Languages and Linguistics, which includes programs in European Studies
  • School of Social and Political Sciences
  • Graduate School of Humanities and Social Sciences

Finances and endowment

The University of Melbourne has an endowment of approximately $1.335 billion.

The university's endowments recovered after hardship following the 2008 Great Recession, which shrank its investments by 22%. This required restructuring of the university, including cutting 220 full-time positions. A further round of cuts, driven by lingering concerns about finances and declining Federal contributions to the tertiary sector, took place under the "Business Improvement Program" from 2014 to 2016 and resulted in the cutting of 500 jobs.

Under former vice-chancellor Glyn Davis, the university publicly launched a fundraising campaign titled Believe in 2013. The campaign raised $500 million by 2016 and sought to raise a further $1 billion by 2021.

Academic profile

Research and publications

Melbourne University claims that its research expenditure is second only to that of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). The university is a leading Australian research university, with the largest cohort of research students in Australia.

The Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities is released by National Taiwan University (NTU Ranking), and placed the University of Melbourne as the 29th highest internationally and 1st domestically in 2018. It evaluates the performance of scientific papers, and the indicators used are designed to compare both the quantity and quality of published scientific works by each university.

Similarly, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) ranks universities on variables, including both research output and citations. For 2018/19 it ranked the University of Melbourne at number 57 in the world, and number1 within Australia.

The university is connected to more than 100 research centres and institutes. In 2010 the university spent $813 million on research. In the same year the university had the highest numbers of federal government Australian Postgraduate Awards (APA) and International Postgraduate Research Scholarships (IPRS), as well as the largest totals of Research Higher Degree (RHD) student load (3,222 students) and RHD completions (715).

Teaching structure

The University of Melbourne differs from other Australian universities in its course structure, as it offers nine generalised three-year degrees instead of more traditional specialised undergraduate degrees. This system, described as the "Melbourne Model", was implemented in 2008 by then Vice-Chancellor Glyn Davis, the university having previously offered many single and joint undergraduate degrees. The university also offers postgraduate courses (including professional-entry master's degrees) that follow undergraduate courses with greater specialisation.

Several professional degrees are available only for graduate entry. These degrees are at a masters level according to the Australian Qualification Framework, but are named "masters" or "doctorate" following the practice in North America. The university's faculties often have a corresponding graduate school to offer these degrees.

Entrepreneurship

The university has an entrepreneurship arm, named the Melbourne Entrepreneurial Centre (MEC). The university also has an accelerator program for start-ups, which has produced a number of small companies. The university also has an entrepreneurial training centre called the Wade Institute of Entrepreneurship based at Ormond College, one of the university's residential colleges.

Libraries and collections

thumb|Baillieu Library, at the Parkville CampusThe University of Melbourne's libraries have over three million visitors performing 42 million loan transactions every year. The general collection comprises over 3.5 million items including books, DVDs, photographic slides, music scores and periodicals as well as rare maps, prints and other published materials.

  • Baillieu Library

thumb|Inside the former Brownless Library

  • Burnley, Creswick and Dookie Libraries
  • ERC (Eastern Resource Centre) Library
  • Giblin Eunson Library
  • Law Library
  • Southbank Library
  • Veterinary and Agricultural Science Libraries

With the exception of the Baillieu and ERC libraries, most of the university's libraries have a subject focus. In addition to the study libraries, the Student Union runs a recreational library named the Rowden White Library in the Student Pavilion.

Museums and archives

Grainger Museum

thumb|255x255px|The [[Grainger Museum on Royal Parade. ]]

The Grainger Museum is located at the university's Parkville campus, and is the only purpose built autobiographical museum in Australia. It is home to a diverse collection of over 100,000 items including photographs, costumes, art, music scores and instruments. The items were collected by Percy Grainger and span his life and career. Grainger was an eccentric and famous composer, arranger and pianist whose career played a prominent role in the revival of interest in British folk music in the early years of the 20th century.

Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology

The Harry Brookes Allen Museum of Anatomy and Pathology, located at the Parkville campus, is one of Australia's largest collections of both historical anatomical models and real human tissue specimens. It provides students at The University of Melbourne educational resources for the medical and related anatomical disciplines. The museum is not normally open to the public, though tours of the museum are available for medical students and health professionals.

Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum

The Henry Forman Atkinson Dental Museum is located at the Melbourne Dental School on the Parkville campus. It is the oldest dental collection in Australia, with over 3,500 objects, photographs, documents, and catalogues.

Ian Potter Museum of Art

thumb|The Ian Potter Museum of Art in 2010.

The Ian Potter Museum of Art is located at the university's Parkville campus, and is the university's main art museum. Since being founded in 1972, the museum has hosted more than 500 exhibitions. The Potter's collection exceeds 18,000 objects, with works ranging from antiquity to contemporary art.

Medical History Museum

The Medical History Museum is located within the Brownless Biomedical Library at the university's Parkville campus. Exhibitions and educational programs are offered by the museum.

Ed Muirhead Physics Museum

The Ed Muirhead Physics Museum is located at the university's Parkville campus in the School of Physics building. The museum is named in honour of Ed Muirhead, who was the Chairman of the School of Physics from 1980 to 1986, and initiated the museum during that time. The collection comprises items that are of historical and scientific interest, predominantly scientific apparatus constructed by former professors and staff for research purposes.

Tiegs Museum

The Tiegs Museum is located at the university's Parkville campus in the BioSciences building. The museum hosts a collection of zoological specimens accumulated over 120 years, and is named after the former professor and faculty dean Oscar Tiegs. Specimens included in the collection range from small invertebrates to the whole mounts and skeletons of vertebrates including an African Lion and a moa (an extinct emu-like bird from New Zealand).

Galleries and exhibitions

The Fiona & Sidney Myer Gallery is located at the university's Southbank campus in the heart of Melbourne's Arts Precinct. It provides a space for members of the Victorian College of the Arts community to showcase new work, playing an educational role for the institution. The gallery opened in 2001 (as the Margaret Lawrence Gallery) to link the Victorian College of the Arts with the University of Melbourne, and to the wider communities of Victorian and national arts. The space facilitates and encourages connections between professional artists, academics, students, and the wider public.

The Noel Shaw Gallery is located within the Baillieu Library at the university's Parkville campus. It opened in 2014, following a bequest by university alumna, Noel Shaw. Each year two exhibitions are presented in the Noel Shaw Gallery, which focus on the opportunities for curriculum engagement.

Buxton Contemporary

Buxton Contemporary is an art museum located at the university's Southbank campus, in Melbourne's Arts precinct. The museum was opened in 2018 and comprises four public exhibition galleries, teaching facilities and an outdoor screen for moving image art. The museum was the result of a gift to the university by the art collector and property developer Michael Buxton.

Science Gallery Melbourne opened in 2021 at the university's Parkville campus. The 3,500 square metre gallery is in the university's new Melbourne Connect building and presents exhibitions that seek to combine art and science. The gallery forms part of the Global Science Gallery Network, based on the Science Gallery at Trinity College, Dublin.

Herbarium

The University of Melbourne Herbarium is a teaching and research herbarium within the School of Biosciences.

Academic reputation

In the 2024 Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities, which measures aggregate performance across the QS, THE and ARWU rankings, the university attained a position of #23 (1st nationally).

National publications

In the Australian Financial Review Best Universities Ranking 2025, the university was ranked #1 amongst Australian universities.

Global publications

In the 2026 Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings (published 2025), the university attained a position of #19 globally (1st nationally).

In the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026 (published 2025), the university attained a position of #37 globally (1st nationally).

In the 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities, the university attained a position of #38 globally (1st nationally).

In the 2025–2026 U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities, the university attained a position of #30 globally (2nd nationally).

In the CWTS Leiden Ranking 2024, the university attained a position of #36 globally (1st nationally).

Student outcomes

The Australian Government's QILT