Steady strength in ARWU rankings

ACU continues to make its mark globally, ranking for seven subjects in the 2021 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Subject Rankings.

Highlights include ranking at 18th in the world in nursing for the second year running, climbing into the top 50 in education and becoming the highest-ranked Catholic university in the world for this subject, moving into the 101-150 band ranking for psychology – and ranking among the top 200 institutions in law for the first time.

ACU improved or maintained its overall standing in most subject areas where it featured in the ARWU assessments:

• Nursing – 18th (maintained from 2020)
• Education – 46th (up from 51-75)
• Psychology – 101-150 (up from 151-200)
• Law – 151-200 (not previously ranked)
• Hospitality and Tourism Studies – 201-300 (down from 151-200)
• Clinical Medicine – 301-400 (maintained from 2020)
• Public Health – 401-500 (down from 301-400)

Also known as the Shanghai Rankings, ARWU ranks institutions in 54 subjects according to bibliometric data from Clarivate’s Web of Science and InCites databases. Performance is measured across five indicators: research output, research influence, international collaboration, research quality, and the number of staff winning significant academic awards.

ACU’s strength in theology, philosophy, and other humanities such as history is not assessed by ARWU. An eighth subject area – sport science – is not assessed each year but in 2020 we ranked 22nd in the world, up from 26th.

“These results show ACU is now among the top 50 universities in the world for education and nursing research,” Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) Professor Wayne McKenna said. “I congratulate all our researchers who contributed to these excellent outcomes for ACU.”