ANU has held onto its spot in the World University Rankings. Photo: Michelle Kroll.
The Australian National University’s global ranking has remained steady, receiving an overall score that’s close to when it had its best ranking ever almost 10 years ago.
The latest Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings placed ANU as equal 73rd university in the world – the same ranking it had in 2025.
The university was given an overall score of 71.1 after considering its teaching, research environment, research quality, support to industry to innovate and ability to attract students, postgraduates and faculty.
This is just 0.2 points off the overall score ANU received in 2017 (71.3) when it achieved its highest overall ranking out of more than 2000 institutions across the globe: 47th.
Breaking down the numbers closer to home, ANU is Australia’s fourth top university, behind University of Melbourne, University of Sydney and Monash University.
Considering the numbers by subject area, it’s number one in the country for social sciences and the physical sciences. It’s third in Australia for arts and humanities, and law.
ANU’s standings in the 2026 global rankings are:
- Arts and humanities: 53rd (up from 65th in 2025)
- Business and economics: 70th (up from 81st)
- Computer science: 83rd (down from 81st)
- Engineering: 101-125th band (same as 2025)
- Law: 39th (down from 31st)
- Life sciences: 87th (down from =71st)
- Medical and health: 91st (up from the 101-125th band)
- Physical sciences: 60th (down from 59th)
- Psychology: 96th (up from the 101-125th band)
- Social sciences: 35th (down from =29th)
ANU wasn’t evaluated for education studies.
Research and Innovation Acting Deputy Vice-Chancellor Professor Ann Evans said the rankings showed how ANU continued to “foster a culture of excellence”.
“ANU has a distinct responsibility to conduct transformative research and teaching, and these rankings reflect the hard work the university continues to do each and every day to fulfil its founding mission,” she said.
“We remain committed to innovation and impactful change, and providing an outstanding learning, teaching and campus experience for our students.”
University of Canberra’s ranking stubbornly remained much further down the list.
It was placed in the 401-500th band in the 2026 global rankings, the same placing it received in 2025.
It’s best ranking in the past 10 years was in 2022 when it was equal-170th in the world.
But despite its overall score of 46.2-49.8, its ability to attract students, postgraduates and faculty staff was given a respectable score of 89.1.
UC Vice-Chancellor Bill Shorten said the results were still positive, as the institution had held steady or improved its rankings when looking at study areas.
“We don’t define ourselves just by rankings but many criteria including, very importantly, the positive experience our students have whilst enrolled at UC and the fact that our graduates have the shortest possible gap between graduation and employment,” he said.
“The University of Canberra remains committed to creating and delivering the best offerings possible for our students – certainly by delivering excellence from a curriculum and delivery standpoint, but also in terms of providing support, flexibility, industry engagement and employment outcomes.”
The World University Rankings placed UC as 26th in Australia (out of 37 institutions).
