The Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences is ranked as one of the top research institutions among leading universities worldwide.
Among our academic staff (current and retired) we are proud to have many Fellows of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and Fellows of the Australian Academy of the Humanities.
2026 Times Higher Education Subject Rankings
- Ranked 39 in Education studies, placing 4th in Australia.
- Ranked 83 in Social Sciences, placing 5th in Australia.
- Ranked 101-125 in Arts and Humanities, placing 5th in Australia
The Times Higher Education subject rankings 2026 include more than 2000 universities across 115 countries and regions.
2025 QS World University Rankings by Subject
- 41st in the world - Education & Training
- 45th in the world - Development Studies
- 47th in the world - Archaeology
- 47th in the world - Social Science and Management
The QS Top University Rankings for 2025 measure a university’s performance across a number of indicators including academic reputation, teaching quality and research output.
2025-2026 U.S. News Best Global Universities Rankings by Subject
- 39th in Arts and Humanities
- 42nd in Education and Educational Research
- 30th in Social Sciences and Public Health
The U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings assess over 2,000 institutions worldwide, including subject-specific rankings across 51 academic areas based on research performance and reputation. These rankings highlight global leaders in academic research across a wide range of disciplines.
2024 Shanghai Ranking's Global Ranking of Academic Subjects
- Sociology placed 41st in the world and 2nd in Australia
- Education placed 26th in the world and 2nd in Australia
- Political Science placed 3rd in Australia
The full methodology for 2024 is available here, including definitions of all indicators and indicator weightings for each subject area.
2024 National Taiwan University (NTU) Rankings
The National Taiwan University (NTU) Ranking has published its latest Overall, Field, and Subject rankings of world universities based on the performance of their scientific papers.
- 17th in the world in the 'Social Sciences, General' catergory
- 4th in Oceania in the 'Social Sciences, General' catergory
The data also places our disciplines 33rd in the world in relation to the number of publications belonging to the top 10% in their field.
2024 CWTS Leiden Ranking
- 4th in Oceania for number of Top 10 publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities
- 17th in the world for the number of research publications in the Social Sciences and Social Sciences
- 33rd in the world in relation to the number of Top 10 publications in the Social Sciences and Humanities
The Leiden Ranking is based on bibliographic data on scientific publications, in particular on articles published in scientific journals. More information here.
Excellence in Research Australia (ERA)
Specialised fields of research rated at the highest level (5):
- Studies in Human Society
- Political Science
- Sociology
- Literary Studies
- History and Philosophy of Specific Fields.
Excellence in Research (ERA) is Australia’s national research evaluation framework. It identifies excellence across Australia’s higher education institutions and compares Australia's university research effort against international benchmarks.
