The ANU has moved up to 37th place - and Australian universities have risen generally, in The Times Higher Education World University Rankings report, released today.

But the ANU remains the second-placed Australian institution after the University of Melbourne, which moved up nine places to 28th.

Compared to seven listings in the top-200 rankings in 2011, Australia now boasts eight: the University of Melbourne (28), ANU (37), University of Sydney (62), University of Queensland (65), University of NSW (85), Monash University (99), University of Adelaide (176), and the University of Western Australian (190).

Professor Young said the result confirms the ANU's climb through international ranks following rises in this year's Academic Ranking of World Universities and QS World University rankings.

"This is a very positive endorsement of the work being carried out across the University," Professor Young said.

"ANU staff produce research and deliver teaching of the highest quality, ensuring this great institution has a competitive edge within our region and around the world.

"Our commitment to world class standards is evident in the improvements we have seen across three separate international measures of university performance in as many months.

He noted the ANU had achieved a higher score in the three key categories of research, teaching and citations with the research result going up to 83.5, from 75.1 last year.

The report rankings editor Phil Baty credited Australia's strong performance as part of a wider trend showing that institutions in the Asia-Pacific were gaining ground on the United States and United Kingdom.

Rankings are based on 13 performance indicators including industry income and innovation, a reputation survey of more than 16,000 academics, PhDs awarded and the number of research papers published.

Mr Baty said the improvement in Australian institutions was due to better scores for research efforts.

"Australia is really starting to benefit from the power shift from the West to the East in higher education - it has great advantages being close to the exciting innovation and research hotspots in Asia," he said.

"If it can fully exploit the geographical advantage it has over Europe and North America, there's every reason to believe it can be part of a real higher education revolution in Asia-Pacific."

Of the eight Australian universities in the top 200, six improved their positions and a new measure tracking average movement of the top 200 institutions in each country showed Australia had the third-biggest ranking improvement in the world.

The full list is available on the Times Higher Education website.