The Australian National University (ANU) is a world-leading institution of higher education and research located in Canberra, the capital of Australia. ANU was established by federal legislation in 1946 as The Australian National University College, an affiliate college of the University of Melbourne. In 1960, it was granted full university status as a separate institution.
ANU comprises eight Colleges – Asia and the Pacific; Arts and Social Sciences; Business and Economics; Law; Medicine, Biology and Environment; Physical and Mathematical Sciences; Science; and Engineering and Computer Science – which offer undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate programs across a broad range of disciplines. The University has more than 22,000 students from over 130 countries enrolled in its programs.
ANU is consistently ranked among the world’s top universities. In 2019, it was ranked #23 in the QS World University Rankings, #33 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, #20 in Forbes’ Best Value Colleges list for international students, #1 in Australia for employability according to the Global Employability Survey 2018/19 rankings produced by Times Higher Education/THE rankings), #2 worldwide for gender equality according to THE’s Pilot Ranking 2019)
The main campus of ANU is located at Acton Peninsula on Lake Burley Griffin in central Canberra. The university also has several other campuses around Australia including one each in Darwin (Northern Territory), Mount Stromlo Observatory near Canberra (Australian Capital Territory), Kioloa on the south coast of New South Wales near Batemans Bay (New South Wales) and Weston Creek (ACT). Overseas centres are located at Bandar Seri Begawan in Brunei Darussalam
Research conducted at ANU covers a wide range of topics but with particular strengths in astrophysics , climate change , quantum computing , demography , ecology , development economics , econometrics geography history law linguistics national security policymaking sociology theology . According to Thomson Reuters’ Essential Science Indicators database ANU ranks 20th globally for citation impact with staff having an average H-index score of 55 between 2009-2019 . Notable alumni include former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd ; Nobel Laureates Peter Doherty , Brian Schmidt ; Google CEO Sundar Pichai ; Chief Justice Susan Kiefel AC ; Opposition Leader Bill Shorten ; author Richard Flanagan OBE amongst others