A listing of the top-ranked institutions for environmental sciences and ecology research in Australia and New Zealand, published on the UK site Times Higher Education, has placed Macquarie University in the top spot.

 

The list, which was put together using the Essential Science Indicators database of Thomson Reuters, ranked institutions based on the citation impact of journal articles published over the last decade.

 

Macquarie appeared n the number one spot locally and is ranked as number 14 in the world for environmental sciences and ecology research.

 

According to Times Higher Education,  Macquarie appears to be leading a trend in environmental sciences and ecology research that has emerged as a ‘strongly improving area for Australia and New Zealand’.

 

"Now, both nations not only hold a much larger world share of papers in this field than would be expected based on their output in all fields, but they have also seen the influence of such papers rise significantly: New Zealand scored 3 per cent above the world average in the field in terms of citations per paper in the period 1981-85 and 28 per cent above average in 2005-09, whereas, during the same interval, Australia’s citation impact increased from 10 per cent above the world average to 23 per cent above the world average."

 

The only other Australian institution which achieved a place in the world top 100 was James Cook University, which ranked second in Australia and New Zealand, and 42nd in the world.

 

Other Australian organizations in the local top ten were the Australian National University (No 5), Charles Darwin University (N0 6) , the CSIRO (No 7), University of Queensland (No 8) and Monash University (No 10), while three New Zealand contenders made the top ten - Landcare Research New Zealand (No 3)the University of Auckland (No 4) and the University of Canterbury (No 9).

 

The Times Higher Education ranking for top institutions in Australian and New Zealand for research in environmental sciences and ecology is available here.