ANU and The University of Melbourne have performed strongly in the latest QS University Rankings for the Social Sciences, beating hundreds of institutions globally.
Australian National University (ANU) was ranked 6th in the world for modern languages, philosophy and geography and area studies, 9th in earth sciences and 10th for linguistics, environmental sciences and politics and international studies.
The University of Melbourne ranked joint 11th with the University of Toronto for Linguistics, 11th in Civil and Structural Engineering, 12th in Chemical Engineering, 8th for Psychology, 9th for Law and 14th for Economics.
However, The University of Melbourne outranked ANU in four out of six tables for the main subject areas.
The latest set of QS World University Rankings assesses universities across the world at a subject level, specifically looking at the Social Sciences. Australian universities were well represented, competing with top US, UK and European institutions to take top ten and top 20 places in most of the 26 disciplines.
The University of New South Wales, The University of Sydney, Monash University and University of Queensland also performed well with top 40 places.
ANU vice-chancellor Professor Ian Young said: "These rankings are welcome news. As Australia's national university ANU strives to set the standard for teaching and research."
QS spokesperson Danny Byrne said the traditional US/UK stranglehold was broken in many subject areas by strong performances from Asian and Australian universities.
"University of Melbourne stakes a claim as Australia's leading university in the Social Sciences, ranking first nationally in four tables to ANU’s two," Mr Byrne said.
Social Sciences cover some of the most popular subject areas, including Law, Economics, Accounting and Politics.