The Australian National University has fallen two places on the world's most influential ranking of university research performance - the Academic Ranking of World Universities, produced by China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University.
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The ANU has fallen from 64th to 66th this year, while the University of Melbourne has again taken out Australia's top-ranking place at 54.
The University of Melbourne improved its performance this year on last, rising from 57th place.
Five years ago, ANU came top in Australia with a ranking of 57, compared with Melbourne at 79.
ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young said he was still pleased.
''While rankings are imperfect and tend to jump around year to year, they do give us a sense of how we sit amongst our peers globally,'' he said. ''It is great to see ANU, as a relatively small institution, continue to sit amongst the best in the world. It's a real testament to the quality of ANU people that we rank strongly.''
Australia managed to get half of its 40 universities into the top 500.
The University of Queensland came in at 85th place - up from 90th last year. The University of Western Australia was 91st - up from 93rd place last year - while Sydney University came in at 97th place - down from 96th last year.
The ARWU is one of several international university league tables but measures only research performance. It is the third successive year Melbourne has been ranked top in Australia.
The ARWU also produces 10 discipline-based rankings with the ANU coming 28th in the world in physics, 37th in natural sciences and mathematics, and in the 51-75 group in life and agricultural sciences and social sciences
