RESEARCH AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MELBOURNE

HISTORY

The University of Melbourne has been a centre of learning since 1855. The main Parkville campus on the edge of the Melbourne CBD is a focus of the city’s ‘Knowledge Precinct’ and the prestigious medical research ‘Parkville Precinct’.

Melbourne is a leading research university, widely renowned for its teaching, research achievements and social and economic contributions. National and international performance confirms the University as a leader across a broad range of fields.

Excellence in Research

Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) results confirmed the University’s position as the nation’s leading comprehensive research-intensive university. ERA found over 99 per cent of the University’s research to be at or above world standard and that the University accounts for 18 per cent of all Australian research output classified at or above world standard. ERA quality assessments were based on researchers, research outputs, research income, applied measures and esteem measures for the period 2003–2008.

The University of Melbourne submission to the inaugural ERA assessment included data on more than 2900 full-time equivalent researchers and over 30,000 research outputs for the scheme’s eight broad disciplinary areas.

Of just over 100 research areas assessed by the ARC over a six-year period, 42 at Melbourne had the highest rating, well-above world ranking. Another 40 were rated above world standard and 20 at world standard.

Areas achieving the maximum world rating included: Mathematical, Physical, Earth and Biological Sciences; Engineering and Technology; Medical and Health Sciences; Economics and Commerce; Law; Language; and History and Archaeology.

See: www.arc.gov.au/era

RANKINGS

Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)

The University of Melbourne has claimed the top spot in Australia and has been ranked 60th worldwide in the 2011 Academic Ranking of World Universities announced in August. Melbourne climbed two places internationally in the most highly regarded academic rankings of the world’s top universities, collated by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The University has also jumped 32 places since the rankings began in 2003.

The ARWU compares 1000 higher education institutions worldwide on a range of criteria including staff and alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, highly cited researchers and articles published in Science and Nature and science citation indices, as well as academic performance in relation to the universities’ size.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2010-2011

See: www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2010-2011/ocean...

World rank    36
Region rank    1
Overall score    71
Teaching    58.7
International mix    88
Industry income    47.7
Research    69.2
Citations    83.3


2011 QS World University Rankings by Subject

For the complete top 200 QS World University Rankings by Subject.

See: www.topuniversities.com/#slide-one

Arts & Humanities
1st in Australia and 14th in the world in English Language & Literature
2nd in Australia and equal 11th with University of Toronto in Linguistics
2nd in Australia and 15th in the world in Philosophy
3rd in Australia and 16th in the world in Modern Languages
3rd in Australia and 14th in the world in History
3rd in Australia and 22nd in the world in Geography & Area Studies

Engineering & Technology
1st in Australia and 19th in the world in Computer Science & Information Systems
1st in Australia and 11th in the world in Civil & Structural Engineering
1st in Australia and 12th in the world in Chemical Engineering
1st in Australia and 15th in the world in Electrical Engineering and Mechanical
1st in Australia and 17th in the world in Aeronautical & Manufacturing Engineering

Life Sciences
1st in Australia and 15th in the world in Medicine
1st in Australia and equal 25th in Biological Sciences
1st in Australia and 8th in the world in Psychology

Natural Sciences
1st in Australia and 23rd in the world in Chemistry
1st in Australia and 14th in the world in Physics & Astronomy
2nd in Australia and 26th in the world in Mathematics
2nd in Australia and 16th in the world in Environmental Sciences
3rd in Australia and 30th in the world in Earth & Marine Sciences

Social Sciences
1st Australia and 14th in the world in Accounting & Finance
1st in Australia and equal 16th in the world in Economics and Econometrics
1st in Australia and 16th in the world in Statistics and Operational Research
1st in Australia and 9th in the world in Law
2nd in Australia (ANU 10) and 12th in the world in Politics and International Studies
2nd in Australia (ANU 13) and 20th in the world in Sociology


LOCATIONS

Main campus: Parkville. Other campuses: Austin and Northern Hospital, Western Hospital and the Eastern Hill precinct including St Vincent’s campus and The Royal Eye and Ear Hospital. VCA and Music campus at Southbank, Hawthorn, Burnley, Dookie, Werribee, Creswick, Shepparton.

AFFILIATIONS

Austin Health; Australia and New Zealand School of Government; Australian Antarctic Division; Australian Centre for Post Traumatic Mental Health; Australian Institute of Family Studies; Bionics Institute; Bureau of Meteorology; Burnet Institute; Cancer Council Victoria; CSIRO; Epworth Health Care; Florey Neuroscience Institutes; Goulburn Valley Health; Grattan Institute; Institute of Postcolonial Studies; Leo Cussen Institute for Continuing Legal Education; Ludwig Institute for Cancer Research; Marine and Freshwater Resources Institute; Melbourne Business School; Melbourne College of Divinity; Melbourne Health; Mental Health Research Institute; Murdoch Children’s Research Institute; Museum Victoria; National Ageing Research Institute; Northern Health; Peter MacCallum Cancer Institute; Royal Botanic Gardens; Royal Children’s Hospital; Royal Victorian Eye and Ear Hospital; Skin and Cancer Foundation; St Vincent’s Health; St Vincent’s Institute; Tasman Institute, Tasman Asia Pacific; the Women’s Hospital; Victorian College of Optometry; Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine; Walter and Eliza Hall Institute of Medical Research; Zoological Parks and Gardens Board of Victoria.

RESEARCH CENTRES

The University of Melbourne has 11 discipline-specific faculties, and is affiliated with many independent medical research institutes, teaching hospitals and other institutions like the Melbourne Business School. The University is also a leader in cultural, environmental, legal and social research. Among the many specialist centres are:

Cooperative Research Centres (CRC)

The Australian Government’s CRC program delivers social, economic and environmental benefits by encouraging collaboration between research institutions and industry, with a strong commercialisation focus, e.g. the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies.

Australian Research Council (ARC) Centres of Excellence

The ARC’s Centres of Excellence program maintains and develops Australia’s international standing in the Commonwealth Government’s designated Priority Areas of Research:

• Nano-Materials and Bio-Materials (NBM)
• Genome/Phenome Research (GPR)
• Complex/Intelligent Systems (CSI)
• Photon Science and Technology (PST).

The University of Melbourne is the lead participant in four of these Centres: the ARC Centre of Excellence for Particle Physics at the Tera-Scale; the ARC Centre of Excellence for Free Radical Chemistry and Biotechnology, the ARC Centre of Excellence in Coherent X-ray Science, and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics of Complex Systems. Melbourne is also a key collaborator and partner in a further 12 centres: ARC Centre of Excellence in Design in Light Metals; ARC Centre of Excellence in Ore Deposits; ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research (University of Queensland); ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computer Technology (UNSW); ARC Centre of Excellence for Kangaroo Genomics (Australian National University); the ARC Centre of Excellence in Biotechnology and Development (University of Newcastle); ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Cell Wall Biology (University of Adelaide); ARC Centre of Excellence for Quantum Computation and Communication Technology (University of New South Wales); ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate System Science (University of New South Wales); ARC Centre of Excellence for All-sky Astrophysics (University of Sydney); ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (University of Queensland); and the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (University of Western Australia).

National Health and Medical Research Council Centres and Programs

The National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) is Australia’s peak body for supporting health and medical research. Program Grants provide security of funding to teams of researchers over a five-year period. The University currently holds seven of these prestigious grants focusing on influenza, stroke, immunity, youth mental disorders, epilepsy, and neurodegeneration of ageing. A new Centre of Research Excellence will accelerate discoveries in neuroscience into new health outcomes.

Melbourne Research Institutes

These are University constituted institutes that draw together the breadth of our research activity across faculty and discipline boundaries to tackle complex global issues and respond to major social, economic and environmental challenges.

Our current institutes are:

• Institute for a Broadband-Enabled Society
• Melbourne Energy Institute
• Melbourne Materials Research Institute
• Melbourne Neuroscience Institute
• Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute

See: www.ri.unimelb.edu.au



GRADUATE RESEARCH TRAINING

As members of one of Australia’s largest research institutions, graduate research candidates at the University of Melbourne work on projects spanning emerging fields as well as the full range of traditional academic disciplines. The researchers who supervise and mentor our graduate research candidates are among the world’s finest and work at the forefront of international scholarship.