QS releases annual ranking of world’s top architecture schools for 2019

Four Australian universities have been ranked among the worlds top 50 schools for architecture.

The University of Sydney was ranked 15, back to its 2017 ranking after slipping to 16 in 2018. The University of Melbourne following closely behind at 17, advancing four places from 21. RMIT University climbed to 22, up from 26, while the University of NSW dropped to 25 from 23, a position it shares with the Technical University of Munich.

Curtin University, the University of Technology Sydney, Monash University, Queensland University of Technology and the University of Queensland were ranked between 51 and 100. The University of Newcastle, Griffith University, the University of Adelaide and the University of Western Australia were placed between 101 and 150.

University College London was ranked the best university for architecture, usurping the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has claimed the top ranking for the past several years.

A university’s ranking is determined by a number of factors, including the school’s academic and employer reputation, which are both assessed through an international survey, the number of citations per research paper, and their H-index, which is based on the institution’s most cited papers and the number of citations that the institution receives in other publications in a given subject.

The methodology used by ranking bodies like QS, and the prominence given to them by the universities themselves, have been the subject of criticism in the past.

Australia has 20 architecture programs accredited for the purpose of entry to the architectural practice exam.

The QS World Rankings for the top 25 universities for architecture and the built environment in 2019 are:

1. University College London (UCL) – United Kingdom

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) – United States

3. Delft University of Technology – Netherlands

4. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH Zurich) – Switzerland

5. Harvard University – United States

6. University of California, Berkeley (UCB) – United States

7. University of Cambridge – United Kingdom

8. National University of Singapore – Singapore

9. Manchester School of Architecture – United Kingdom

10. Tsinghua University – China

11. Polytechnic University of Milan (Politecnico di Milano) – Italy

12. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne (École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)) – Switzerland

13. The University of Hong Kong – Hong Kong

14. Columbia University – United States

15. The University of Sydney – Australia

16. University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) – United States

17. The University of Melbourne – Australia

18. Tongji University – China

19. The University of Tokyo – Japan

20. Hong Kong Polytechnic University – Hong Kong

21. The University of Sheffield – United Kingdom

22. RMIT University – Australia

23. KTH Royal Institute of Technology ­­– Sweden

24. Georgia Institute of Technology – United States

25. Technical University of Munich – Germany

25. University of New South Wales – Australia

Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the University of Technology Sydney (UTS) was ranked between 101 and 150. UTS was ranked between 51 and 100.

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