The University of New South Wales has been named the best university in Australia for a second year running as academic institutions around the country face ongoing funding pressures.
Just four Australian universities cracked this year's Center for World University Rankings top 100, with UNSW claiming 52nd in the world for a second time.
Melbourne University also held its place at 64th, while the Australian National University slid three places to 93rd.
The CWUR compiles a list of the world's 2000 top universities by assessing them on education, employability, faculty and research output.
It is among a range of organisations which produce global university rankings, with the most reputable and longstanding being the Times Higher Education and QS World University Rankings.
The University of Sydney faltered in this year's CWUR ranking, plummeting six places to 100th.
University of Queensland held its position at 103rd and Monash University jumped to 113 - up from 117th the previous year.
In total 39 Australian universities were included in the list.
Of those, 13 improved their ranking, three stayed the same, and 23 performed worse than the previous year.
Internationally, the highest rated school was Harvard University, followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University - all three of which are in the US.
Outside America, the highest ranking universities were Britain's Cambridge and Oxford, which came in fourth and fifth respectively.
China had the highest number of universities represented on the list, with 360 tertiary schools.
The highest ranked of those was Beijing's Tsinghua University at 36th.
Australia’s universities are facing significant funding pressures after years of what industry advocates say is policy uncertainty and fallout from the global pandemic.
A study by Universities Australia released in February showed over 40 per cent of universities have spent most of the past five years in deficit, with concerns for regional campuses, research capacity and future workforce pipelines if the trend continues.
