Australia has cemented its position as a global leader in mining education, with four universities ranked among the world’s top 10 for minerals and mining engineering.
The latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings by Subject 2026 placed the University of New South Wales (UNSW) as the highest-ranked Australian institution in third place, followed by Curtin University (fourth), the University of Queensland (fifth) and the University of Western Australia (ninth).
Despite slipping one position from last year, UNSW remains one of the top mining engineering schools globally, while Curtin and Queensland maintained strong showings in the top five.
The rankings were led by the Colorado School of Mines in the US and Canada’s McGill University, which claimed first and second place respectively.
Australia’s strong performance extended beyond mining engineering into related disciplines, including earth sciences and broader engineering fields, where local institutions consistently placed in the top 50 and top 100 globally.
The QS rankings assessed more than 21,000 courses across 1900 universities in 100 countries, marking the 16th edition of the annual subject rankings.
Globally, North America remained the most represented region, while eastern Asia recorded the highest number of new entries and southern Asia showed the strongest proportional improvement.