RMIT has ranked 22nd globally out of 749 research-intensive universities worldwide in Times Higher Education's inaugural Interdisciplinary Science Rankings.
This result is evidence of RMIT's longstanding commitment to taking a collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to investigating and solving global issues and challenges of social, economic and environmental importance.
Over the past decade RMIT has scaled up its interdisciplinary approach to address these complex issues with the introduction of Enabling Impact Platforms and Networks.
Distinguished Professor Calum Drummond AO, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation, described this as an outstanding result that the university community is incredibly proud of.
"While RMIT is a relatively young university, we are deeply committed to scaling up our interdisciplinary research and translation activities. By leveraging diverse expertise and thought leadership, we aim to produce high-quality, impactful research outcomes."
Distinguished Professor Calum Drummond AO, Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research & Innovation
An excellent example of our cross-disciplinary research approach is the Australian Research Council's Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making and Society, which is led by RMIT. Launched in 2019, the centre looks at how rapidly emerging autonomous decision-making technologies can be used safely and ethically. Researchers from RMIT collaborate with experts at other Australian universities and many academic and industry partner organisations from Australia, Europe, Asia and America.
"To rank 22nd among top-ranked institutions like MIT and Stanford University and be regarded as a world leader in collaborative research is truly humbling. I congratulate our talented team of researchers and the entire RMIT community who all play a role in supporting and advancing our research endeavours," added Drummond.
The ranking is the first to assess the contributions and commitment of universities to interdisciplinary science. It consists of three key pillars which represent each stage of the lifecycle of research projects: inputs, process and outputs.
Inputs is based on funding, processes on facilities and research support, while outputs gauges cross-disciplinary influence of an institution through publications and citations as well as reputation among the research community for interdisciplinary teams.
Distinguished Professor Drummond also acknowledged RMIT researchers who were included in the latest edition of Clarivate's Highly Cited Researchers List which was released this week.
"Congratulations to Benu Adhikari, Tianyi Ma, Nasir Mahmood and Xinghuo Yu. It's wonderful to see you recognised globally for your outstanding commitment and contribution to influential research outcomes," said Drummond.
Visit the THE website to see the full results of the 2025 Interdisciplinary Science Rankings.
