The Times Higher Education have released their global rankings for 2025. For the fourth year in a row, Western Sydney University has achieved first place for delivering community impact.
Western’s Vice-Chancellor Professor George Williams announced the unprecedented achievement through the University’s website on the 18th June 2025 congratulating staff and students.
The Times Higher Education (THE) Impact rankings sort 2,526 universities from 130 countries to determine the top sustainable institutions based on the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Western Sydney University has both positive and negative stats to show.
For ‘Good Health and Well-being’ Western ranked 22nd. While this is an improvement from 2024, it is a vast deterioration from 2023 when Western ranked 4th. For ‘Zero Hunger’ we ranked 66th. This is a significant improvement from 2023 and 2024, but could use further attention. Even more concerning is the ranking for ‘No Poverty’, at 200th position, which has been worsening since 2022.
However, there are some good signs.
Western ranked 10th for ‘Affordable and Clean Energy’ and 9th for ‘Clean Water and Sanitation’. It further ranked 8th for ‘Climate Action’ and 7th for ‘Gender Equality’.
And impressively, we are 1st again for ‘Impact’.
But what does this mean?
In THE’s annual impact rankings, Western is one of three Australian institutes to make the top five, with the University of Tasmania and Griffith University at equal fourth place.
These rankings are of global significance with Professor Williams announcing, “Today is a proud milestone for Western Sydney University.”
This highlights Western’s Decadal Strategy which include 50 long term actions aiming for sustainability and resilience by 2030. Western is believed to be on track to meet the 2030 target, Professor Williams stating Western continues to ‘show the world the way’.
Williams thanked the University community for supporting students, research, and behind the scenes impact and ongoing commitment: ‘We can all be proud of this result’.
