Australian Universities

The Australian National University (ANU) is a national asset and one of the world’s leading centres for research and education.The University was founded by the Australian Government in 1946 to apply the best minds to the biggest questions and help advance Australia’s international standing. Today, ANU continues its nation-building work, leading Australian thinking, teaching and community engagement on issues of national and international significance.

The University is consistently ranked among the best universities in the world by a range of international measures. In 2011, 94 per cent of research from ANU scholars was rated above world standard or well above world standard by the Australian Government’s Excellence in Research for Australia initiative.

Charles Darwin University (CDU) represents the education and training backbone of the Northern Territory. A dual-sector institution, CDU offers courses ranging from certificate level through to doctorates.As the largest tertiary institution in the Northern Territory, CDU has campuses in Darwin, Palmerston, Alice Springs, Katherine and Nhulunbuy, and study centres in Yulara, Jabiru and Tennant Creek. It also delivers education and training into more than 170 remote centres across the Territory.

More than 21,000 students study with CDU online, on campus or at one of the Territory’s remote locations. The student body comes from all parts of Australia and includes a substantial representation of Indigenous people. Its overseas students come from more than 60 countries.

Edith Cowan University (ECU) is a large multi-campus institution serving communities in Western Australia and a significant cohort of international students.Awarded university status in 1991, ECU also has a long and distinguished history, with its predecessor institutions, including teachers colleges, dating back to 1902.

ECU has since developed innovative and practical courses across a wide range of disciplines, established a vibrant research culture and attracted a growing range of quality research partners and researchers, many working at the cutting edge of their fields.  ECU has more than 27,000 students at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels. Approximately 4,000 of these are international students originating from over 70 countries.

Flinders University is a high quality institution delivering excellence in teaching and research, with a reputation for friendly and approachable staff, and with a main campus located in an attractive natural environment in southern metropolitan Adelaide.Flinders is committed to engagement with the community it serves, in providing a world class education for students and in enhancing educational opportunities for students from communities with low university participation rates. Whilst Flinders remains strongly committed to South Australia, the university has expanded its activities in the Northern Territory in partnership with Charles Darwin University.

Offering undergraduate and postgraduate courses in 14 schools across four Faculties, Flinders has over 2,000 staff and more than 18,800 students. Flinders also has on- campus accommodation for over 500 students.

Griffith University is a major education and research contributor in the Asia-Pacific region. Ranked in the world top 500 across a range of prestigious indices, Griffith is Australia’s ninth largest higher education provider. A student-centred, research-intensive university in the Brisbane-Gold Coast corridor of South-East Queensland, Griffith is home to more than 43,000 students from 131 countries and has 130,000 graduates spread around the world. The university offers more that 300 degrees at undergraduate and postgraduate level as well as high-quality degrees by research.

Five campuses located at Southbank, Nathan, Mt Gravatt, Logan and the Gold Coast, offer work-integrated student learning experiences to all students.

Beginning as the University College of Townsville in 1961 as part of the University of Queensland, JCU became Queensland’s second autonomous University in 1970.  The Cairns campus was established in 1987, JCU Singapore in 2003 and JCU Brisbane in 2006. There are study centres in Mackay, Mt Isa and Thursday Island, and research stations at Horn Island, Mareeba, Orpheus Island, Paluma and Fletcherview.
The major campuses in Cairns and Townsville are located within the tropics and immediately adjacent to two of the wonders of the natural world – the Great Barrier Reef and the Wet Tropics Rainforests.

A medium-sized university with more than 17,000 students, including more than 5,200 international students, JCU has produced some 40,000 graduates. JCU is a comprehensive university, offering more than 140 undergraduate and more than 120 postgraduate courses spanning the arts, business, creative arts, dentistry, education, engineering, Indigenous Australian studies, information technology, health sciences, law, medicine, veterinary sciences, social sciences and science.

La Trobe University was established in 1964 as Victoria’s third university. Since its inception the University has had a clear purpose: to serve the community through the relevance and inclusiveness of its research and teaching.

The University now offers more than 390 undergraduate and postgraduate courses and hosts more than 28,000 students, including over 6,000 international students from more than 90 countries.

Its largest campus is in the Melbourne suburb of Bundoora, approximately 14km from the city centre. This 330 hectare campus is home to the La Trobe University Research and Development Park – Australia’s largest wholly university owned and managed technology park, and the Melbourne Wildlife Sanctuary.  It is now a leading provider of regional higher education in Australia with campuses in Bendigo, Albury-Wodonga, Mildura and Shepparton.

Macquarie University is a major teaching and research university situated on a spacious and beautiful campus of 126 hectares within Sydney’s high-technology corridor. This location ideally places the university to attract industry as participants in higher education through scholarships, internships and work experience for students, research opportunities for staff, and new facilities for teaching and research.

Macquarie enrols 37,000 students annually across four faculties – Business and Economics, Arts, Science, and Human Sciences – and employs more than 2,000 staff. There is an additional smaller campus in the Sydney CBD, and courses are also offered in Melbourne, Singapore, Hong Kong and Beijing. One of these courses, Macquarie’s Masters of Applied Finance, is the largest program of its type in the world. Affiliated with the University are several research centres, schools and institutes including the highly-regarded Macquarie Graduate School of Management.

Originally known as the Melbourne College of Divinity and founded by an Act of the Victorian State Parliament in 1910, MCD University of Divinity is the sixth oldest self-accrediting higher education provider in Australia and one of the oldest ecumenical institutions in the world.  It is the first higher education provider in Australia to be granted Specialised University status, commencing in 2012.  Accredited to teach courses in Philosophy and Religious Studies, MCD University of Divinity was affirmed as one of the leading research institutions in Australia in this broad field by the Australian Research Council’s 2010 Excellence in Research for Australia assessment which ranked its research at world standard.

Today MCD University of Divinity comprises eleven Colleges in Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney, representing the Anglican, Baptist, Churches of Christ, Coptic Orthodox, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and Uniting Church traditions.  It also includes a  specialist centre for the study of Christian Spirituality, and is fundamentally committed to ecumenical cooperation in theological education.

Monash University is Australia’s largest university, with over 60.000 sttudents and is notable for achievements across the full range of research, education and community engagement activities.  Monash is a member of the Group of Eight research intensive universities.  It is a multi-campus institution with Victorian campuses at Clayton, Caulfield, Berwick, Gippsland and Frankston; international campuses in South Africa and Malaysia; a research training centre in Mumbai, India, and a centre in Prato, Italy.  The University has a strong distance and on-line education base which attracts students from across Australia and it is home to the largest number of international students of any Australian university.