Why UTS tops the list in Nursing and Midwifery

There are more than 20,000 universities in the world, which can make choosing where to study a pretty challenging proposition.

The good news?

There’s a whole industry dedicated to comparing universities, so that you don’t have to. 

Using a variety of methodologies, these rankings schemes organise universities according to their achievements in teaching, research and academic performance.

Here are some of the most prestigious ones:

• Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings
• QS World University Rankings
• Academic World University Rankings (ARWU)
• Australian Government’s Excellence in Research Australia (ERA) initiative.

These rankings systems play a significant role in establishing a university’s reputation at a global level, and they can be particularly useful for students who are trying to decide where to undertake a postgraduate research degree.

But understanding how the rankings relate to achievement within a specific faculty or discipline can be a daunting – and confusing – task.

In a nutshell

THE, QS and ARWU international systems are the best known of the existing schemes. The THE system measures universities on their teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook, while QS is focused on academic peer review, faculty/student ratio, citations per faculty, employer reputation, and ratios of international staff and students.

On the more traditional side, ARWU looks at quality of education, quality of faculty, research output (including being highly cited researchers) and per capita performance, and emphasises major academic awards such as the Nobel Prize and the Fields Medal.

But beyond these whole-of-university scores, there are some pretty straightforward by-subject ranking categories that can help you make decisions about where to study.

And if it’s nursing or midwifery that you’ve got your eye on, then UTS might be just the uni you’ve been looking for. 

Not just another number

Subject rankings look at a university’s achievements in a particular discipline area.

In the subject of Nursing, UTS is the leading university in Australia – and one of the best in the world – in two of the major subject ranking schemes: the QS World University Rankings by Subject and the ARWU Subject Rankings.

• In the 2018 QS Rankings by Subject, UTS was ranked #7 in the world for nursing, a subject group that includes all nursing specialties and midwifery.
• In the 2018 ARWU Subject Rankings, UTS tied for #6 in the world for nursing and midwifery.
• In both rankings schemes, UTS was the only Australian university to make the world’s top 10, making it the leading Australian university for nursing and midwifery.

Why though?

QS Rankings by Subject scores are based on four information sources:

• an academic survey
• an employer survey
• research citations
• h-index, which measures the productivity of academic publications.

These sources provide a snapshot of academic expertise – that is, the achievements of academics in specific subject areas; graduate employability, or how employers perceive the value of graduates from different universities as prospective employees; and research excellence, or the meaningful research outputs being produced by a university in a specific discipline area.

By comparison, the ARWU By Subject rankings use five different metrics to calculate by-subject rankings. Broadly, these are:

• the number of papers produced in that subject area within a given period
• the citation ratio for those papers compared to the average
• the number of collaborations with two or more international colleagues
•  the number of papers published in top subject-specific journals
• the number of staff who’ve won a significant award in the subject area.

The fact that UTS is the leading Australian university for nursing and midwifery in both these rankings schemes is the result of an increasing trajectory of academic and research excellence. Between 2016 and 2018, UTS climbed 13 places on the QS Rankings by Subject list; on the ARWU Subject Rankings, we moved up from #9 in 2017 to #6 this year.

Between 2016 and 2018, UTS [Health] climbed 13 places on the QS Rankings by Subject list; on the ARWU Subject Rankings, we moved up from #9 in 2017 to #6 this year.

But it’s not just international ranking systems that put UTS Nursing and Midwifery at the top of the league tables. Closer to home, the Federal Government’s Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) initiative compares national research outputs against the best results in the world. In 2015, the year the most recent ERA results were released, UTS emerged as the top-ranked university in NSW for nursing and midwifery with an ERA ranking of 5, or well above world standard – the highest possible score.

What does it all mean?

Well, if you’re considering nursing or midwifery at UTS, our position within these ranking systems indicates that our academics are world class, our graduates are highly employable, and we’re producing research that shapes not only the content of our courses but the health care sector at large.

You might also want to look at UTS’s position in some non-discipline-specific university rankings schemes as well to get a sense of our continuing upward trajectory, particularly in rankings schemes that are focused on young universities (after all, we’re only 30 years old!).

We're currently: 

• the #1 university in Australia and #7 in the world in the QS Top 50 Under 50;
• #1 in Australia and 15th in the world in the THE Young Universities Rankings;
• well inside the top 200 for the QS World University Rankings; and
• well inside the top 100 in the QS Graduate Eligibility Rankings.

...to name a few! 

At the end of the day

While rankings outcomes should form part of your decision when it comes to where you study, there’s more to life than numbers.

Who you are, the things that matter to you and how (and where!) you envision your educational experience are just as important in choosing a university.

Still unsure?

You can’t go wrong with a uni that’s young, bright and on the move – which means you can’t go wrong with UTS! 

Study at UTS