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Wednesday, 29 April 2015

The University of Western Australia’s subject areas of Agriculture and Forestry, Psychology, Education and Earth and Marine Sciences have all ranked in the top 50 in this year’s QS World University Rankings by Subject.

UWA featured in the world’s elite (top 200) institutions in 23 of the 34 subjects assessed.  Overall, 3551 universities were evaluated and 894 were ranked; more than100 million citation attributions were analysed and more than 14,000 programs were verified.

UWA particularly excelled in Agriculture & Forestry (ranked 41 globally, an increase in its position from 101-151 last year) and Psychology, which was ranked at 27.

Other subject areas that featured in the top 51-100 included Accounting and Finance, Biological Sciences, Business and Management studies, Environmental Science, Engineering - Civil and Structural, Medicine and Law.

UWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Paul Johnson said UWA’s inclusion in the rankings followed the most recent ARWU ranking by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, which placed UWA 88th in the world.

“UWA’s inclusion once again in the QS rankings highlights the fantastic work of staff, students and researchers at the University,” Professor Johnson said.

“We are focused on doing the best we can and we know that as a leading research organisation we have the responsibility to drive research infrastructure in WA and push the boundaries of understanding and knowledge.”

Professor Johnson said agriculture at UWA climbed to 24th in the world in recent Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s academic ranking of world universities. The UWA Institute of Agriculture is renowned for its research-based solutions to food security, environmental sustainability, and agribusiness, by internationally renowned scientists.

A significant research breakthrough in the last year identified ways for farmers in medium-to-high rainfall areas of the WA grainbelt to increase wheat yield and adapt to the variable climate. In 2014, the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) acknowledged the importance of UWA’s Farm Ridgefield in sustainable farming systems, and has included the Farm in its directory of best practice models in grassland, rangeland and pastoral management.

In 2014 professors Ian Small and Harvey Millar from the ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology were also recognised as among the world’s top one per cent most cited researchers in the prestigious Thomson Reuters 2014 Highly Cited Researchers list.

UWA was one of only five Australian universities to earn the highest rating of five for the Psychology field of research at the last national Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) evaluation held in 2012. The School of Psychology attracts internationally renowned teaching staff including Professor Gillian Rhodes who was elected to the Australian Academy of Social Sciences and Professor Colin MacLeod who won the 2014 Australian Psychological Society’s Distinguished Contribution to Psychological Science Award.

This very prestigious award is further recognition of Professor MacLeod’s substantial contribution to the cognition-and-emotion field of research. The Psychology school makes a substantial investment in developing students’ research skills from their first year through to post doctorate level with a number of students in the last year receiving industry awards.

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