The 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World Rankings have now been released. This fourth edition of The Times Higher-QS World University Rankings confirms the message of earlier editions: the top universities, on a number of measures, are in the English-speaking world. And again ANU performed well remaining at number 16 in the world. Harvard again topped the rankings, with University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Yale University sharing second in the rankings.

Outside of USA and UK, only McGill University in Canada was ranked higher than ANU at number 12. In 2006 McGill was ranked slightly lower at number 21. Peking University, which was 14th in 2006, has dropped behind ANU to 36th in 2007.

As for the other Australian universities ranked in the top 50: Melbourne was ranked 27th (22nd in 2006); University of Sydney - 31st (35th in 2006); University of Queensland - 33rd (45th in 2006); Monash University - 43rd (38th in 2006); and the University of NSW - 44th (41st in 2006).

So how did THES rank our alliance partners? Nine of the ten universities in the International Alliance of Research Universities were ranked in the top 50; University of Copenhagen came in at number 93. Cambridge, Oxford and Yale ranked equal second behind Harvard with ANU the next ranked IARU partner at 16th. Tokyo was ranked just behind ANU at number 17, with Berkeley 22nd.

The THES also looks at the Top 50 universities in a number of disciplines. ANU appears in the Top 50 listing for each discipline category and 1st in Australia in three of the five disciplines.

• Arts and Humanities - ANU was 1st in Australia and 10th overall
• Life Science and Biomedicine - ANU was 4th in Australia and 28th overall
• Natural Sciences - ANU was 1st in Australia and 19th overall
• Social Sciences - ANU was 1st in Australia and 16th overall
• Technology - ANU was 3rd in Australia and 39th overall