TheAustralian National University (ANU) is apublicresearch university and member of theGroup of Eight, located inCanberra, the capital ofAustralia. Its main campus inActon encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national academies and institutes.[13]
Established in 1946, ANU is the only university to have been created by theParliament of Australia.[a] It traces its origins toCanberra University College, which was established in 1929 and was integrated into ANU in 1960.[14] ANU enrols 13,329 undergraduate and 11,021 postgraduate students and employs 4,517 staff.[15] The university's endowment stood at A$1.8 billion as of 2018.[16]
The first residents' hall,University House, was opened in 1954 for faculty members and postgraduate students.Mount Stromlo Observatory, established by the federal government in 1924, became part of ANU in 1957. The first locations of theANU Library, the Menzies and Chifley buildings, opened in 1963. The Australian Forestry School, located in Canberra since 1927, was amalgamated by ANU in 1965.[14]
In 1960, CUC was integrated into ANU as the School of General Studies, initially with faculties in arts, economics, law and science. Faculties inOriental studies and engineering were introduced later. Bruce Hall, the first residential college for undergraduates, opened in 1961.[14]
TheCanberra School of Music and theCanberra School of Art combined in 1988 to form theCanberra Institute of the Arts, and amalgamated with the university as theANU Institute of the Arts in 1992.[14][24][25]
ANU established itsMedical School in 2002, after obtaining federal government approval in 2000.[26]
In February 2013, financial entrepreneur and ANU graduateGraham Tuckwell made the largest university donation in Australian history by giving $50 million to fund an undergraduate scholarship program at ANU.[29]
ANU is well known for its history ofstudent activism and, in recent years, itsfossil fuel divestment campaign, which is one of the longest-running and most successful in the country.[30] The decision of the ANU Council to divest from two fossil fuel companies in 2014 was criticised by ministers in theAbbott government, but defended by Vice Chancellor Ian Young, who noted:
On divestment, it is clear we were in the right and played a truly national and international leadership role. [...] [W]e seem to have played a major role in a movement which now seems unstoppable.[31]
As of 2014[update] ANU holds investments in major fossil fuel companies.[32]
A survey conducted by theAustralian Human Rights Commission in 2017 found that the ANU had the second-highest incidence of sexual assault and sexual harassment.[33][34] 3.5 per cent of respondents from the ANU reported being sexually assaulted in 2016. Vice Chancellor Brian Schmidt apologised to victims of sexual assault and harassment.[35]
The ANU had funding and staff cuts in theSchool of Music in 2011–15[36] and in the School of Culture, History and Language in 2016.[37][38][39] However, there is a range of global (governmental) endowments available for Arts and Social Sciences, designated only for ANU.[40] Some courses are now delivered online.[41]
In 2017,Chinese hackers infiltrated the computers of Australian National University, potentially compromising national security research conducted at the university.[43][44]
ANU's main campus in Acton, CanberraThe Di Riddell Student Centre opened in 2019Side of the Kambri Cultural Centre, The Australian National University, Canberra.
The main campus of ANU extends across theCanberra suburb ofActon, which consists of 358 acres (1.45 km2) of mostly parkland with university buildings landscaped within.[45] ANU is roughly bisected bySullivans Creek, part of theMurray–Darling basin, and is bordered by the native bushland ofBlack Mountain,Lake Burley Griffin, the suburb ofTurner and the Canberracentral business district. The Acton campus is also home to three sports fields (South Oval, Fellows Oval and Willows Oval), six tennis courts (home to the ANU Tennis Club[46]), two gymnasiums and a pool. Many university sites are of historical significance dating from the establishment of the national capital, with over 40 buildings recognised by the Commonwealth Heritage List and several others on local lists.[47]
With over 10,000 trees on its campus,[48] ANU won an International Sustainable Campus Network Award in 2009[49] and was ranked the 2nd greenest university campus in Australia in 2011.[50]
The Drill Hall Gallery is housed adrill hall dating from the 1940s, for use in training soldiers for theSecond World War, and as base for3rd Battalion, Werriwa Regiment. The interior was remodelled to create anart gallery in 1984, and in 2004 the building washeritage-listed. Temporary exhibitions of the national collection were held in the hall while theNational Gallery of Australia was being built. ANU took over the hall in 1992 to exhibit its own collection of artworks, and also as a venue for temporary exhibitions.[52]
There are four separate exhibition spaces, which provide the venues not only for exhibitions developed by or in collaboration with the university, but also to accompany major conferences and public events. The venue hosts both national and international exhibitions.Sidney Nolan's panorama,Riverbend, which comprises nine panels, ís on permanent display at the Drill Hall Gallery.[52]
ANU is governed by a 15-member Council, whose members include theChancellor andVice-Chancellor.[53]Gareth Evans, a formerForeign Minister of Australia, was ANU Chancellor from 2010 to December 2019 andBrian Schmidt, an astrophysicist and Nobel Laureate, served as Vice-Chancellor from 1 January 2016 to 1 January 2024.[54][55] Evans was succeeded as Chancellor by a fellow former Foreign Minister,Julie Bishop, in January 2020.[56][57] Schmidt was succeeded as Vice-Chancellor by cultural anthropologist and Distinguished ProfessorGenevieve Bell in January 2024.[55]
ANU was reorganised in 2006 to create seven Colleges, each of which leads both teaching and research.[14] Additional restructuring occurred in 2017, resulting in changes to the names and schools within the Colleges.[58]
The ANU College of Arts and Social Sciences is divided into the Research School of Social Sciences (RSSS) and Research School of Humanities and the Arts (RSHA). Within RSSS there are schools and centres dedicated toHistory,Philosophy,Sociology,Politics &International Relations,Demography,Arab andIslamic Studies, andEuropean Studies, as well as the Australian National Centre forLatin and American Studies,[59] Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research,[60] and the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods.[61]
RSHA contains schools ofArchaeology andAnthropology;Art &Design; andLiterature,Languages and Linguistics, the latter of which include departments focusing on Linguistics & Applied Linguistics; English, Screen, Drama & Gender Studies; Languages & Cultures, and Classical Studies. RSHA also houses theANU School of Music.[62] In 2017, ANU ranked 6th in the world for politics, 8th in the world for Social Policy and Administration and 11th in the world for development studies.[63]
The college is also home to the Australian Studies Institute.[64]
The college's School of Philosophy houses the ANU Centre for Consciousness, ANU Centre for Philosophy of the Sciences, and ANU Centre for Moral, Social and Political Theory, an organisation whose purpose is to "become a world-leading forum for exposition and analysis of the evolution, structure, and implications of our moral, social and political life."[65][66][67][68] Its president isNicholas Southwood and key people includeSeth Lazar,Geoff Brennan,Bob Goodin, Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit and Michael Smith.[when?][citation needed]
The ANU College of Asia and the Pacific is a specialist centre ofAsian andPacific studies and languages, among the largest collections of experts in these fields of any university in the English-speaking world.[69] The college is home to four academic schools: theANU Crawford School of Public Policy, a research intensive public policy school; the School of Culture, History and Language, for studies of Asia-Pacific people and languages;[70] theCoral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, covering politics and international affairs of Asia and the Pacific; and the School of Regulation and Global Governance (RegNet, formerly the Regulatory Institutions Network), study of regulation and governance.[71][72]
The college also houses the Australian Centre on China in the World, theStrategic and Defence Studies Centre, and theCouncil for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, Australia.[73] It has dedicated regional institutes for China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mongolia, Myanmar, the Pacific, Southeast Asia and South Asia. The college hosts a series annual and biannual updates, on various regions in the Asia-Pacific. TheCrawford School of Public Policy houses the Asia Pacific Arndt-Cohen Department of Economics, the Asia Pacific Network for Environmental Governance, the Australia-Japan Research Centre, The Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, the Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, theEast Asian Bureau of Economic Research, the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, the ANU National Security College, theEast Asia Forum publication and a number of other centres.[74] The Crawford School of Public Policy also hosts offices and programs for theAustralia and New Zealand School of Government. Many high performing Year in Asia program students gain the opportunity to travel to an Asian country of their choosing to study for one year specializing in one Asian language.[75]
TheANU College of Systems and Society brings together critical capabilities in understanding the modern interfaces between systems, technology, processes, the physical world, and the social world. The college comprises six academic units: the Australian National Centre for the Public Awareness of Science, Fenner School of Environment & Society, Mathematical Sciences Institute, School of Computing, School of Cybernetics, and School of Engineering. ANU is home to theNational Computational Infrastructure National Facility and was a co-founder ofNICTA, the chiefinformation and communications technology research centre in Australia.
Research areas of expertise in the college include: Computing Foundations, Computational Science, Intelligent Systems, Data Science and Analytics, Software Innovation Institute, Cybernetics Education, Cybernetics Futures, Cybernetics Projects, Aerospace Engineering, Energy Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Information and Signals Processing, Mechatronics, Biodiversity and Conservation, Climate and Energy, Food soil water and agriculture, Forests and Fire, Indigenous people and the environment, Integrative methods and application, Urban systems and sustainability, Algebra and Topology, Analysis and Geometry, Applied and Nonlinear Analysis, Bioinformation Science, Computational Mathematics, Fusion plasma theory and modelling, Mathematical Physics, Stochastic analysis and risk modelling, Theoretical astrophysics, Public engagement and informal science, Public Policy and Science Advice, Responsible innovation and emerging technologies, Science media and culture, Theories and frameworks in science communication, and Topics in science communication.[80]
TheANU College of Law, Governance and Policy comprises the ANU Law School and ANU School of Legal Practice. The college covers legal research and teaching, with centres dedicated tocommercial law,international law,public law andenvironmental law.[81] In addition to numerous research programs, the college offers the professionalLL.B. andJ.D. degrees. It is the 7th oldest[82] of Australia's 36law schools and was ranked 2nd among Australian and 12th among world law schools by the 2018QS Rankings.[83] Students are given the chance to spend three weeks inGeneva concerning the institutional practice of International Law.[84]
TheANU College of Science and Medicine comprises the Research Schools of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, andPhysics.[85] Under the direction ofMark Oliphant, nuclear physics was one of the university's most notable early research priorities, leading to the construction of a 500 megajoulehomopolar generator and a 7.7 megaelectronvoltscyclotron in the 1950s.[86] These devices were to be used as part of a 10.6 gigaelectronvoltsynchrotron particle accelerator that was never completed, however they remained in use for other research purposes.[86] ANU has been home to eightparticle accelerators over the years and operates the 14UD and LINAS accelerators.[87]Brian Schmidt (astrophysicist atMount Stromlo Observatory) received the 2011Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on the accelerating expansion of the universe.
The library of ANU originated in 1948 with the appointment of the first librarian, Arthur McDonald.[14] The library holds over 2.5 million physical volumes[100] distributed across six branches—the Chifley, Menzies, Hancock, Art & Music, and Law Libraries and the external Print Repository.[101] Chifley and Hancock libraries are both accessible for ANU staff and students 24 hours a day.[102][103]
For international students starting in 2025, tuition fees range fromA$32,020 toA$95,360 per academic year for award programs lasting at least one year.[104] Domestic students[b] may be offered a federally-subsidised Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP) which substantially decreases the student contribution amount billed to the student.[106] The maximum student contribution amount limits that can be applied to CSP students are dependent on the field of study.[107]
Since 2021, Commonwealth Supported Places have also been limited to 7 years of equivalent full-time study load (EFTSL), calculated in the form of Student Learning Entitlement (SLE).[108] Students may accrue additional SLE under some circumstances (e.g. starting aseparate one-year honours program) or every 10 years.[108] Domestic students are also able to access the HECS-HELP student loans scheme offered by the federal government.[109] These are indexed to theConsumer orWage Price Index, whichever is lower, and repayments are voluntary unless the recipient passes an income threshold.[109]
The university also offers severalscholarships, which come in the form ofbursaries or tuition fee remission.[110]
In the 2024Aggregate Ranking of Top Universities, which measures aggregate performance across the QS, THE and ARWU rankings, the university attained a position of #57 (6th nationally).[125]
The Australian Government's QILT[d] conducts national surveys documenting the student life cycle from enrolment through to employment.[132] These surveys place more emphasis on criteria such as student experience, graduate outcomes and employer satisfaction[132] than perceived reputation, research output and citation counts.[133]
In the 2023 Employer Satisfaction Survey, graduates of the university had an overall employer satisfaction rate of 84.2%.[134]
In the 2023 Graduate Outcomes Survey, graduates of the university had a full-time employment rate of 80.7% for undergraduates and 88.5% for postgraduates.[135] The initial full-time salary wasA$72,000 for undergraduates andA$96,400 for postgraduates.[135]
In the 2023 Student Experience Survey, undergraduates at the university rated the quality of their entire educational experience at 79.4% meanwhile postgraduates rated their overall education experience at 72.5%.[136]
Australian National University Students' Association (ANUSA) is the students' union of the Australian National University and acts as a representative body for the undergraduate, postgraduate and research students.[137] The Australian National University Union is another student association that manages catering, retail outlets and other amenities on behalf of all students.[138]
Woroni is a student publication at Australian National University. It was first published on 23 May 1947 under the titleStudent Notes: Canberra University College Students Association.[139] On 14 February 1950, the name was changed toWoroni,[140] which is derived from an Indigenous Australian word meaning "mouthpiece".Woroni is published bi-monthly in full colour magazine format, and features local news and opinion.[139]
The magazine was originally published by the school's student association.[141] An independent student organization called ANU Student Media was incorporated in October 2010, and has operatedWoroni ever since.[142] In 2012, an online radio station called Woroni Radio was launched,[143] and a video production arm called Woroni TV was started in 2017.[144]
ANU Observer is another of the Australian National University's student news publications. Founded in 2017,ANUObserver is an online news site that covers breaking campus news, student life, student politics, arts and culture, sports, university policy and more.ANU Observer is an ANU student association, meaning all students are members by default (and can attend and vote at General Meetings.)[149] Observer also produces a weekly podcast calledOur Experts Have Observed, which can be accessed via Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Eleven on-campus residential halls are affiliated with ANU—Bruce Hall, Burgmann College, Burton & Garran Hall, Fenner Hall, John XXIII College, Ursula Hall, Wamburun Hall, Wright Hall, Yukeembruk Village, Graduate House andToad Hall.[150] Together these residence accommodate for undergraduate and postgraduate students. Four UniLodge residences are also available to ANU students, situated just off campus—Davey Lodge, Kinloch Lodge, Warrumbul Lodge and Lena Karmel Lodge.[150] In 2010, the non-residential Griffin Hall was established for students living off-campus. Another off-campus student accommodation was launched by UniGardens Pty, University Gardens[151] located inBelconnen. Bruce Hall opened in 1961, and was the first undergraduate hall of residence at the university and the first mixed-gender undergraduate residence in Australia[152][153][154].
In 2014, 2019 and 2020 there were major protests organised by student leaders across all of the ANU's halls of residence[155] against steep rent hikes, neglect of pastoral care support, and repeated failures to address issues relating to sexual assault and sexual harassment.[156] Though supported by a majority of students living on residence, the ANU's response to past protests has been mixed, with many recommendations and requests for student consultations ignored. The outcome of the 2020 protests revolve around demands for stronger SASH policy, accountability surrounding tariff rises, and commitments to adequate pastoral care; the outcome of these protests is as yet unknown. Protests have been held since on the issue, with one high-profile one occurring on the same day as the annual Open Day in 2024.[157]
The network of the university was subject to serious compromise from 9 November to 21 December 2018. ABC News reported that the initial breach occurred when aphishing message was previewed.[158][159] After investigating, the university published a report on the incident.[160]Cyber safety recommendations are generally applicable.
In September 2023, an ex-student stabbed two female students and assaulted a male student with a frying pan. There were several injuries but no fatalities.[161] ANU ChancellorJulie Bishop later called for the ACT government to explain why the university was not informed of the risk beforehand.[162]
College of Health and Medicine discrimination scandal
In May 2025, the university released the findings of an independent review led by former Victorian Police CommissionerChristine Nixon into gender and cultural issues within the College of Health and Medicine. The review revealed widespreadbullying,harassment,sexism,racial discrimination, andnepotism across the college and its constituent schools, including theJohn Curtin School of Medical Research, the School of Medicine and Psychology, and the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health.
The review, based on interviews with 83 individuals and 67 written submissions, described a "remarkable tolerance" for misconduct, with reporting pathways often compromised by conflicts of interest. It identified entrenched dysfunction, a toxic "work until you drop" culture, and significant gender imbalances in senior academic positions. Since the commissioning of the review in 2024, the university closed the standalone College of Health and Medicine and merged it with theCollege of Science. Vice-ChancellorGenevieve Bell publicly apologised and committed to implementing all 17 recommendations, including structural reform and external monitoring.[163][164]
^TheUniversity of Canberra was also created by the Parliament of Australia (as the Canberra College of Advanced Education), but that institution did not have university status until after it was transferred to theACT Government.
^According to theHigher Education Support Act 2003, domestic students include permanent residents and New Zealand citizens in addition to Australian citizens.[105]
^Communications, CASS Marketing &; externalrelations.cass@anu.edu.au."Giving to CASS".Archived from the original on 21 October 2017. Retrieved21 October 2017.