Group of Eight (Australian universities)

For the inter-governmental political forum, see Group of Eight.

The Group of Eight (Go8 or G8) comprises Australia's most research intensive universities (in alphabetical order) – the Australian National University, Monash University, University of Adelaide, University of Melbourne, University of New South Wales, University of Queensland, University of Sydney, and University of Western Australia. It is often compared to the Russell Group of research universities in the United Kingdom.^[1]

Group of Eight

Formation	1999
Type	Nonprofit organisation
Headquarters	Canberra, ACT
Location	Australia
Membership	Australian National University Monash University University of Adelaide University of Melbourne University of New South Wales University of Queensland University of Sydney University of Western Australia
Website	www.go8.edu.au

Overview

The Go8 universities are some of the largest and the oldest universities in Australia^[2] and are consistently the highest ranked of all Australian universities. Seven of the Go8 members are ranked in the world's top 100 universities and all Go8 members are ranked in the world's top 150 universities; in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, the QS World University Rankings and the U.S. News & World Report. Go8 Universities feature in the top 50 for every broad subject area in the QS world university subject rankings. In addition, all Go8 Universities are in the QS top 100 for Engineering and Technology, Life Sciences and Medicine, Arts and Humanities, and Social Sciences and Management.^[3]

The Go8 educates 425,000 students; educating more than one quarter of all higher education students in Australia. It graduates some 110,000 graduates each year.^[3]

The Go8 undertakes 70 per cent of Australia's university research and their research funding from industry and other non-Government sources is twice that of the rest of the sector combined.^[3]

The Go8 receives 71 per cent of Australian Competitive Grant (Category 1) funding and had the largest proportion of research fields rated at 4 or 5 ('above' or 'well above' world standard) in the latest Excellence in Research for Australia (ERA) exercise, with 99 per cent of Go8 research is world class or above. Each year the Go8 spends some $6.5 billion on research – more than $2.4 billion of which is spent on Medical and Health Services research. Go8 universities educate more than half of Australia's doctors, dentists, vets and provide some 54 per cent of Australia's science graduates and more than 40 per cent of Australia's engineering graduates.^[4]

The Go8 Board, which consists of the vice-chancellors (who also serve as principals or presidents) of its eight member universities, meets five times a year. The current Chair of the Board is Professor Mark Scott AO, Vice-Chancellor and President of The University of Sydney, appointed in 2024. Vicki Thomson is the Chief Executive of the Group of Eight, taking up the role in January 2015.^[5]

Members

University	City	Established	International Rankings
			QS World (2025)[6]	THE World (2025)[7]	US News (2023)[8]	ARWU World (2023)[9]	Scimago (2022)[10]	URAP (2022)[11]	NTU (2022)[12]	Leiden (2022)[13][note 1]
Australian National University	Canberra	1946	30	73	62	84	232	161	150	236
University of Melbourne	Melbourne	1853	13	39	27	35	29	22	20	29
University of Sydney	Sydney	1850	18	61	28	73	34	18	26	33
University of New South Wales	Sydney	1949	19	83	37=	72	62	35	44	52
University of Queensland	Brisbane	1909	40=	77	36	51	60	36	33	45
Monash University	Melbourne	1958	37	58	37=	77	58	32	35	50
University of Western Australia	Perth	1911	77	149=	83	101–150	224	119	111	200
University of Adelaide	Adelaide	1874	82=	128=	74=	151–200	200	150	113	209

Equals signs (=) denote tied rankings.

Map

Adelaide

ANU

Melbourne

Monash

UNSW

UQ

USYD

UWA

Locations of each Group of Eight university main campus

See also

• Association of American Universities – USA & Canada
• C9 League – The Chinese Ministry of Education's formal grouping of elite universities in China
• TU9, alliance of nine leading Technical Universities in Germany
• Ivy League – group of premium private universities in Northeastern United States
• Group of 8 (Go8) undergraduate law schools
• Law schools in Australia
• Universities in Australia

Notes

1. measured by the impact indicator P (top 1%), ordered by P (top 1%) using fractional counting.