The University of Sydney has ranked first in NSW and third in Australia in the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities 2024. The University ranked 74th in the world, maintaining its place in the top 100.
Released annually by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) ranks more than 2500 universities worldwide and publishes the top 1000 results.
Since 2003, ARWU has been presenting the world's top universities annually based on its methodology and objective third-party data. The rankings use six indicators including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers, papers published in the prestigious journals Nature and Science, papers indexed in prominent citation databases, and per capita performance of academics.
Among the University of Sydney's highly cited academics are:
Faculty of Engineering researcher Professor PJ Cullen who works with the University of Sydney affiliated start-up PlasmaLeap Technologies to develop zero-emission reactors using renewable electricity, air, and water. Starting with the ammonia fertilisers market, this innovation addresses the significant carbon footprint of traditional ammonia production, which accounts for about two percent of global emissions.
Faculty of Science researcher Professor Anita Ho-Baillie, whose expertise is engineering materials and devices at nanoscale for integrating solar cells onto surfaces to generate clean energy. She is currently working with Sydney-based renewable technology company SunDrive to commercialise perovskite-silicon cells, which have emerged as a promising alternative candidate to silicon cells, with the promise of far greater efficiency.
University of Sydney Business School researcher Professor David Hensher, Founding Director of the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies who is recognised globally for his research on transport economics, strategy and policy and his work on choice and preference analysis, applied to many disciplines. The Institute's most recent research found that employers and workers agree that working from home is more productive, with time saved on commuting spent working instead.
Professor Emma Johnston, Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) said, "I congratulate our academics on our results in these rankings which are so strongly associated with excellence in our research. It follows our outstanding performance in the most recent global ShanghaiRanking of academic subjects where Sydney recorded 18 research areas in the top 50 globally, including nursing (7th), telecommunication engineering (10th), transportation science and technology (10th) and Business Administration (10th)."
This year the University ranked 18th in the world and second in Australia in the 2025 QS World University Rankings including being placed first in Australia and 7th globally for sustainability as part of that ranking.
