Faculty maintains strong global standing in latest subject rankings

The Faculty remains in the top 1% of more than 18,000 universities worldwide for the Arts and Humanities subject area, being ranked 76 equal. The individual subject Politics and International Relations remains first in New Zealand and in the top 100 globally.

The Faculty’s History and Performing Arts subjects also ranked highly in New Zealand and Australasia. Both are first equal in New Zealand, while Performing Arts ranks second in Australasia, and History ranks fourth.

In addition, the Faculty ranked in the top 100 globally for Performing Arts, English Langauge and Literature, and Linguistics. Linguistics at this University is now ranked sixth in Australasia. In the top 2% globally are History, Modern Languages, Philosophy, Sociology, and Communications and Media Studies.

Kaiwhakakapi Toi Aropai—Acting Pro Vice-Chancellor of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Education Professor Sarah Leggott says the results reflect the ongoing commitment of staff and students across the breadth of arts and humanities subjects to creating meaningful impact.

“We are a seriously good university when it comes to the arts and humanities. It is immensely satisfying to see our strengths reflected in another round of great survey results and I warmly congratulate all my wonderful colleagues doing the stellar work captured in this latest sweep,” says Acting Dean, Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Professor Simon Mackenzie.

Over the past few years, university rankings have become increasingly competitive, with many new, young universities entering the rankings, but Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington has 18 subjects in the top 1% of the world, and a further 29 in the top 2%.

Along with the yearly ranking, we are one of only 19 universities in the world to hold the maximum ‘five stars plus’ overall in the three-yearly QS Stars rating of excellence and five stars in each of the eight indicators—arts and culture; discipline ranking and accreditations; employability; facilities; inclusiveness; internationalisation; research; and teaching.

As well as our global rankings, the University is number one for research intensity in the latest six-yearly assessment of the Performance-Based Research Fund (PBRF), New Zealand’s main measure of research quality. The University has a higher proportion of academics conducting high-quality research than any other university in the country. We are the only university to top the PBRF assessment twice, having done so consecutively in 2012 and 2018.

Subjects within the Wellington Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences were pivotal to the University’s top ranking in these results with the highest percentage of A-ranked researchers in New Zealand in English Language and Literature, History, Art History, Classics and Curatorial Studies, Music, Literary Arts and Other Arts, Theatre, Dance, Film, Television and Multimedia; as well as the second highest percentage in two other subjects: Foreign Languages and Linguistics, Sociology, Social Policy, Social Work, Criminology and Gender Studies.