Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Margaret Harding has defended the Australian National University’s status despite its fall in a new set of international rankings.
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The respected Times Higher Education World University Rankings released on Thursday show ANU remained Australia's second-highest ranked institute, but fell from 37th to 48th.
Melbourne University also fell, moving from 28th last year to 34th. However, it remained Australia's top-ranking university.
Victoria’s Monash University bucked the trend rising from 99 last year to 91.
In a statement issued on Thursday, Professor Harding said ANU continued to "keep good company”, ranking alongside institutions including Peking University, Penn State, Kyoto University and the University of California at Davis.
She said rankings tended to be a volatile and limited measure, but “do give a sense of what peers an institution has”.
“This ranking has us at 48th in the world and 2nd in Australia, and last month the QS rankings had us at 27th in the world and first in Australia,” Professor Hardin said.
“The rankings move every year, and every set of rankings tells a different story.
“It is a testament to the talent that resides in ANU that we remain firmly within the in the top 100, despite our relatively small size. We sit amongst a fine group of peers, and that is something to be proud of.”
Times Higher Education rankings editor Phil Baty said Australia had "fallen back to earth with a bump" this year in the table.
"It has lost a top 200 institution with the University of Adelaide slipping out of contention, leaving seven representatives in the list," he said.
Mr Baty said the results were alarming because the $2.3 billion cuts to the university sector, announced by the federal Labor government before the election, were yet to be fully felt.
"And the victory last month of conservative Tony Abbott as prime minister does not suggest that research funding will be high on the national agenda."
