Peter Lindsay (Herbert, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have good news this morning for the parliament. James Cook University in Townsville will become the first university outside Europe to receive international recognition for its degrees in marine science. JCU is already acknowledged as Australia’s leading tropical research university and this first five-year accreditation adds to its international standing. London based IMarEST is an international body that oversees professional standards and provides professional focus for all areas of marine science, technology and engineering. Recognition of the Bachelor of Marine Science and Bachelor of Science Tropical Marine Network Program reflects its assessment that the programs meet international professional standards.

It does not stop there. James Cook University academics are the most highly cited university researchers in Australia in the field of environment ecology, according to the latest rankings of the international ISI Web of Knowledge. On the world stage of 402 institutions ranked by ISI in this field, CSIRO appears at No. 7 in the world with only JCU followed by the ANU and the University of Queensland also making the top 100. JCU academics either authored or co-authored 25 per cent of the top 20 most cited Australian papers in this field. The latest ISI citation ranking comes at the same time as the publication by Shanghai Jiao Tong of the academic ranking of world universities for 2006, in which JCU is one of only 16 Australian universities to make the top 500.

It is wonderful for JCU and its academics that these completely independent and objective measures place their research at the leading edge internationally. I say JCU is Australia’s leading tropical research university and that is confirmed by both ISI and the Jiao Tong index. ISI also ranks JCU research papers in the categories of plant and animal science and geosciences in the top 10 of Australian universities for the most highly cited papers. The very high ranking of CSIRO was further indication of the likely future impact of the Australian tropical science and innovation precinct which is to be based at James Cook University in Townsville. This is largely a partnership between JCU and CSIRO, and the JCU rankings on the ISI list show what a powerhouse for research that this precinct will be on the national and the world stage. While JCU is both a regional and middle sized university in the Australian context, it is holding its own and in some cases surpassing the long established and much larger metropolitan universities. Well done, JCU.