Australian universities have once again emerged as being among the best in the world according to the QS World University Rankings released earlier this week.

Australian National University maintained its place as the highest ranked local institution and climbed six places to become the first Australian university to get in the world’s top 20. Five Australian universities made the top 50.

In a statement on the rankings QS said that Australian universities' performance was remarkable because of their strength in all five of the broad academic disciplines which are judged, being among the top five countries in each of the subject areas.

It said Australia was particularly strong in arts and humanities with three universities - ANU, the University of Sydney and the University of Melbourne - in the world's top 20 in this field.

It noted further that Australia's technical universities also showed strength with all five improving their performance on last year and in the top 300 worldwide.

Top 10 Australian Universities

Source: QS World University Rankings 2015

This year the QS Intelligence Unit, changed its methodology in ranking universities emphasising research in the arts and humanities while downplaying the influence of life and medical sciences disciplines the leading universities are traditionally strong in, according to a report in The Australian. This resulted in a dramatic upward movement of Australian universities in the rankings. 

“In most countries, including in the UK and Australia, there are more students in arts and humanities than there are in the life and medical sciences. In trying to make our ranking more useful for students, we have tried to balance that out,” said Ben Sowter, head of the QS Intelligence Unit.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology again topped the QS ranking, followed by Harvard, which jumped from fourth last year. Cambridge and Stanford were equal third, while Caltech was placed fifth and Oxford sixth.

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