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Swinburne University has been listed in the top 500 universities in the world, entering the prestigious Shanghai Jiaotong (SHJT) university rankings for the first time.

The annual 'Academic Ranking of World Universities' is published by the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai's Jiaotong University. The Chinese university evaluates 2,000 campuses worldwide and compiles the top 500 overall as well as the top 100 in individual subjects .

For Vice-Chancellor Professor Ian Young, the result is an outstanding one for Swinburne and reflects the university’s strategy of identifying and building on key areas where the institution can be world class.

“Internationally, the SHJT is regarded as the quality measure for all universities. Achieving a ranking was one of the key goals of the University’s 2015 vision and this result reflects the outstanding work being conducted at Swinburne,“ Professor Young said.

Young explained that the list is based on a combined scale of academic criteria including awards won by alumni and staff such as Nobel prizes, articles published in leading scientific journals and the number of highly-cited researchers.

“The SHJT has very little weighting for the size of the institution - only 10 per cent – and therefore tends to work in the favour of bigger universities. As a result Swinburne is the smallest Australian university to enter the rankings, which adds to the significance of the achievement.

“Swinburne is also the first dual-sector university in Australia to be ranked, showing that it is possible to have a research-intensive university and also a vocational approach to education.

The University’s achievement follows on from the recent Australian Research Council (ARC) results which ranked Swinburne 12th in the country for dollars per staff member for ARC Discovery Grants. The SHJT also supports the annual Times Higher Education-QS World University Rankings which recently listed Swinburne in the top 500 universities in the world.



ENDS

5.11.2009

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