University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater is celebrating the university's leap back into the world's top 150 universities. Photo / Supplied
University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater is celebrating the university's leap back into the world's top 150 universities. Photo / Supplied
The University of Auckland has leapt back into the ranks of the world's top 150 universities for the first time in 12 years.
The latest Times Higher Education rankings, released overnight, put Auckland up 32 places from 179th to 147th place - its best result since 2008 when it placed 145th.
Otago University remains New Zealand's second-ranked university, stable in a bracket between 201st and 250th.
Auckland's second university, AUT, has climbed up the ranks from a bracket between 301st and 350th last year to between 251st and 300th this year, and is now ranked third-best in New Zealand.
Waikato and Victoria Universities are stable, both ranked between 501st and 600th.
Our other three universities have fallen: Canterbury from the 301-350 bracket to 401-500, and Massey and Lincoln both from 501-600 to 601-800.
The Times ranking is one of the two leading English-language ranking systems, along with Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) which split from Times at the time when Auckland was last in the top 150 in 2008.
Auckland also rose by two places in this year's QS rankings to 81st in the world, its highest ranking for five years.
Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater said that she was proud of the achievements of staff across the university – both academic and professional – that had produced such an outstanding result.
"We know the excellence of the teaching, learning and research that is carried out at this university, and it is very gratifying to have it endorsed by the THE ranking system," she said.
"It is important for our students, our research partners, our philanthropists and funders, and decision makers in Government and business to know that when we say we are a leading world-class university we are also demonstrating it on the world stage."
University of Auckland Vice-Chancellor Professor Dawn Freshwater is celebrating the university's leap back into the world's top 150 universities. Photo / Supplied
• Citations of papers by the university's academics in the world's leading academic journals;
• Research, based mainly on a worldwide survey of academics rating the reputation of research from each university, with smaller weightings for the level of research income and research productivity per staff member.
• Teaching, again based mainly on the survey of academics, with smaller weightings for the staff/student ratio, the ratio of doctoral to bachelor's students, the number of doctorates awarded per academic staff member, and institutional income.
A further 7.5 per cent of the total weighting is for "international outlook", including 2.5 per cent each for the proportions of foreign staff, students and collaboration.
The final 2.5 per cent is based on industry income as a measure of "knowledge transfer".
Auckland University's boost this year was mainly due to a jump in its ranking for citations from 235th in the world to 166th.
It also raised its scores for research, international outlook and industry income, but its score for teaching declined slightly.
All of the top 13 universities on the Times list are British or American, reflecting its British origins.
Oxford University is ranked first, followed by Stanford, Harvard, California Institute of Technology (Caltech), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, University of California Berkeley, Yale, Princeton and University of Chicago.
The top-scoring non-Anglo-American university is ETH Zurich, ranked 14th.
China's Tsinghua University becomes the first-ever Asian university to make the top 20, placed 20th-equal with Duke University.
Australia's top university, University of Melbourne, is ranked 31st.
