Strong performance by School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences in world subject rankings

UNSW Sydney’s School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences performed strongly in the latest ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2018: Earth Sciences moved up to 40th in the world, up from 51-75 in 2017; Geography ranked 49th in the world, up from 51-75 in 2017; Atmospheric Science ranked 23rd in the world and second in Australia; and Remote Sensing ranked first in Australia and 16th globally, up from 33 in 2017.

Other highlights within Science included:

• Mathematics ranked first in Australia.
• Psychology moved three places to 44th in the world, and second in Australia.
• Metallurgical Engineering moved up from 51-75 to 50.

“This year’s performance by UNSW Science – including the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences – in ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2018 makes me proud to be the Faculty’s Dean,” said UNSW Science Dean, Emma Johnston.

“The results really speak to the internationally renowned, high-quality and high-impact research that the Faculty is producing, and they demonstrate the academic and research excellence that UNSW is striving for.”

Recent research achievements by the School include scientists from the Climate Change Research Centre (CCRC) having been featured three times in Nature – a top scientific journal – in the past few weeks. Read more about it here.

UNSW Sydney scored the most subjects ranked first in Australia and the highest number of subjects ranked in the top 100 in the country.

With 38 subjects ranking in the global top 100, 24 in the top 50 and three in the top 10, UNSW continues its climb up the rankings, having the most subjects of all Australian universities in the prestigious league table.

ShanghaiRanking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects has published the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by academic subjects since 2009. The rankings assess more than 4000 universities across 54 subjects in natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medical sciences, and social sciences.

United States universities continue to dominate the rankings, occupying first place in 35 disciplines, followed by China with nine and the Netherlands with three. The best performing institution in the world is Harvard, taking 17 crowns, ShanghaiRanking said in a release.

The methodology to determine the ranking includes the number of papers published, international collaboration and citation impact. The full methodology can be found here.