University of Sydney

The University of Sydney (USYD) is a public research university in Sydney, Australia. It was founded in 1850, and it is the oldest university in both Australia and Oceania.

The university is one of Australia's six sandstone universities. It was one of the world's first universities to admit students based only on their academic merit, and it opened its doors to women on the same terms as men. It has eight academic faculties and university schools, and it offers bachelor, master and doctoral degrees.

Five Nobel laureates and two Crafoord laureates have been connected to the university as graduates and staff members. The university has educated 8 Australian prime ministers, including current prime minister Anthony Albanese. It has also educated 2 governors-general of Australia, 13 premiers of New South Wales, and 26 judges of the High Court of Australia, including 5 chief justices. The university has produced 110 Rhodes Scholars and 19 Gates Scholars.

The University of Sydney is a member of the Group of Eight, CEMS, the Association of Pacific Rim Universities and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

History

See also: William Wentworth § Education advocate; and Sir Charles Nicholson, 1st Baronet, of Luddenham § Sydney University

In 1848, Legislative Council members William Wentworth, a University of Cambridge alumnus, and Sir Charles Nicholson, a University of Edinburgh Medical School alumnus, proposed turning Sydney College into a university open to everyone on the basis of merit. The university was established in 1850 and approved by Governor Sir Charles Fitzroy. It opened in 1852 in what is now Sydney Grammar School, with John Woolley as its first principal and John Smith as its first professor of chemistry and experimental physics. It was Australia's first university and one of the first public, non-denominational and secular universities in the British Empire. In 1858 it received a royal charter from Queen Victoria. A seat in the New South Wales legislature was first filled in 1876 by Edmund Barton, who later became the first Prime Minister of Australia. The university admitted women from 1881, and Mary Elizabeth Brown and Isola Florence Thompson were the first women to receive BA degrees. A large gift from the estate of John Henry Challis came in 1889. In 1924, John Bradfield received the first Doctor of Science in Engineering degree from the university and later led construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The philosophy professor John Anderson, a self-described atheist who supported free thought, was a well-known and controversial figure.

The university awarded its first PhD in 1951 to William H. Wittrick. The New England University College, which had been part of the university since 1938, became the separate University of New England in 1954. In the late 1960s, debates over courses on Marxism and feminism led to protests and disagreements, and the philosophy department split into two. Several colleges and schools joined the university in 1990, including the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Cumberland College of Health Sciences, Sydney College of the Arts, and the Sydney Institute of Education of the Sydney College of Advanced Education, which had once been named the Sydney Teachers College. In 2001, the chancellor Dame Leonie Kramer was forced to resign. In 2007, the university agreed to take land for what is now the Charles Perkins Centre, named after Charles Perkins, the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate from the university.

In 2010, the university received a Pablo Picasso painting, Jeune Fille Endormie, which depicts Marie-Thérèse Walter. It was sold at Christie's and the money was used for medical research. Under Vice Chancellor Michael Spence, the university cut spending in 2012, which led to job losses and disagreement among staff and students. In 2014, the university took part in discussions about a proposal by the federal government to deregulation student fees. In 2022, the university's National Tertiary Education Union voted to strike for 48 hours. Starting on 23 April 2024, pro-Palestinian students and staff began occupying part of campus as a protest against the Gaza war.

Campuses and buildings

The main campus is spread across the inner-city suburbs of Camperdown and Darlington and is known for its beautiful architecture and quadrangle. The university first met in what is now Sydney Grammar School. In 1855 the government gave it land at Grose Farm, about three kilometres from the city, which is now the main Camperdown campus. The architect Edmund Blacket designed the first buildings. The Great Hall was finished in 1858, and the Main Building in 1859. Later, the university bought land in Darlington across City Road. The campus is home to the university's headquarters, many faculties, including Architecture, and the large Sydney Medical School. Student life is centred on the student-run University of Sydney Union, and the campus has statues and artworks, including the Gilgamesh Statue.

In 2016 the university was building new offices, classrooms and student spaces on the main campus. The Seymour Centre sits next to a new building for information technology. The new home for the Sydney Law School has been completed, and the university has opened a new building for business students. Other satellite sites include the Sydney Dental Hospital in Surry Hills, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, which is near the Royal Botanic Garden and the Sydney Opera House and was the subject of the documentary Facing the Music, and the Camden campus in Sydney's southwest. The university also uses places such as One Tree Island in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the Molonglo Observatory near Canberra, and Maningrida in the Northern Territory for research and teaching.

University of Sydney residential colleges

St Paul's College 1851–present (Anglican)	St John's College 1857–present (Roman Catholic)	St Andrew's College 1867–present (Presbyterian, now non-denominational)	The Women's College 1894–present (Women)	Wesley College 1917–present (Methodist, now Uniting Church)
Sancta Sophia College 1918–present (Roman Catholic)	Mandelbaum House 1996–present (Jewish)

Governance and structure

The university has eight faculties and schools: the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, the University of Sydney Business School, the Faculty of Engineering, the Faculty of Medicine and Health, the Faculty of Science, the Sydney School of Architecture, Design and Planning, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, and the Sydney Law School. In 2020, the five largest were Arts and Social Sciences, Medicine and Health, Business, Science, and Engineering, and each had more than 8,000 students. The Centre for Continuing Education is an adult education provider within the university. Its extension lectures began in 1886, 36 years after the university was founded, making it Australia's longest running university continuing education program. The Centre for International Security Studies is an academic research centre focused on international security and global politics. Its current director is James Der Derian.

The university has the highest annual revenues of any Australian university and has received many significant bequests and legacies over its history. Several professorships, funds, fellowships and scholarships are named after these donors, including the Douglas Burrows Chair of Paediatrics and Child Health, the John Challis Bequest (see Challis Professorship), the Carlyle Greenwell Research Fund in Anthropology and Archaeology, the Edwin Cuthbert Hall Chair of Middle Eastern Archaeology, the Mitchell Notaras Fellowship in Colorectal Surgery, the Robert W Storr Chair for Hepatic Medicine, and the Peter Nicol Russell Undergraduate Scholarship. The university's coat of arms was granted by the College of Arms in 1857. Its use of eight-pointed stars was unusual for arms at the time. Its Latin motto, Sidere mens eadem mutato, can be translated as "the stars change, the mind remains the same." Francis Merewether, Vice-Chancellor and later Chancellor, first proposed a different motto in 1857, but changed it after objections. The new version is a neat reference to the Southern Cross and may also link to Sir Philip Sidney's "Astrophel (Star-Lover) & Stella (Star)." In his 1981 autobiography, author and university alumnus Clive James joked that the motto loosely implies "Sydney University is really Oxford or Cambridge laterally displaced approximately 12,000 miles."

Academic profile

The University of Sydney Library has 11 libraries across the university's campuses. University statistics show that in 2008 its collection held 5.186 million items, making it the largest academic library in the Southern Hemisphere. It is the only university in Australia that is a state legal deposit library under the Copyright Act 1968, which means a copy of every printed item published in NSW must be sent to the University Library. The Fisher Library holds the Rare Books Library, with 185,000 rare, valuable or fragile books and manuscripts. These include 80 medieval manuscripts, works by Galileo, Halley and Copernicus, and an extensive collection of Australiana. It also has one of the two surviving copies of the Gospel of Barnabas and a first edition of Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica. Regular exhibitions of rare books are held in its exhibition room.

The Chau Chak Wing Museum opened to the public in November 2020 and shows the university's art, natural history and antiquities collections. It won the Museums and Galleries National Award (MAGNA) and two Museums Australasia Multimedia and Publication Design Awards (MAPDA) in 2021. The Nicholson Museum, founded in 1860 by Sir Charles Nicholson, holds ancient artefacts from places such as Rome, Cyprus and Mesopotamia. The Macleay Collection, named after Alexander Macleay, grew from his insect collection and became the basis of the Macleay Museum in 1887. The University of Sydney Union runs the Verge Gallery, which shows art by emerging artists. In the rankings, the university placed #6 in the Australian Financial Review Best Universities Ranking 2025, #25 in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings, #53 in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, #72 in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, #29 in the U.S. News & World Report Best Global Universities, and #42 in the CWTS Leiden Ranking.

Government surveys of student experience, graduate outcomes and employer satisfaction show that graduates had an employer satisfaction rate of 89.6% in 2023, and that undergraduates rated their overall education at 71.7%.

Student life

Undergraduate students are represented by the University of Sydney Students' Representative Council (SRC), and postgraduate students are represented by the Sydney University Postgraduate Representative Association (SUPRA). The University of Sydney Union (USU) is the oldest and largest university union in Australia. It offers clubs, societies, entertainment, services, catering, shops, and spaces for students, staff, and visitors. Students elect representatives each year to run the SRC and the Union. Elections for the USU board happen in first semester, while elections for the SRC take place in second semester, along with a separate vote for the editors of the student newspaper, Honi Soit.

Since 2000, the university has held the Dr Charles Perkins Oration, in honour of its first Aboriginal graduate, Charlie Perkins. Prominent First Nations people, including Linda Burney, Pat Anderson, Daniel Browning, Mick Gooda and Ken Wyatt, have given the oration. The Charles Perkins Memorial Prize recognises the top three Indigenous students based on their academic results. In 2021, the awards event could not be held in the great hall because of the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia, but Perkins' daughter, filmmaker Rachel Perkins, announced the winners. Tony McAvoy, Australia's first Indigenous Queen's Counsel, gave the oration. Each year, the university also hosts many comedy revues, usually linked to a faculty or identity group. Students write and perform the sketches, songs, and videos, which often poke fun at current events and student life. Most revues are staged at the Seymour Centre on the Darlington campus and are supported by the University of Sydney Union (USU). Past revuers have performed in festivals such as the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the New York International Fringe Festival, and the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, and in shows such as The Chaser, The Aunty Jack Show, The Ronnie Johns Half Hour, and The Axis of Awesome.

Notable people

For a more comprehensive list, see List of University of Sydney people.

Notable alumni

University of Sydney alumni have made important contributions to Australia and the world for the past 176 years. The university's graduates include eight prime ministers, the most of any university, five chief justices of the High Court, four federal opposition leaders, two governors-general, nine federal attorneys-general, and 13 premiers of New South Wales. The law school has also produced 26 justices of the High Court, more than any other law school in Australia, along with 24 Rhodes Scholars and several Gates Scholars. Internationally, alumni include the third president of the United Nations General Assembly and a president of the International Court of Justice. These are the only Australians to hold such positions so far. The university is also linked with five Nobel laureates. John Cornforth, an alumnus, is the only Nobel Laureate born in New South Wales. Robert Robinson worked there as staff, John Harsanyi is an alumnus, and John Eccles and Bernard Katz both worked there as staff.

The School of Physics has played an important role in radio astronomy. Ruby Payne-Scott carried out the first interferometric observations in the field using the sea-cliff interferometer at Dover Heights. Alumnus Ron Bracewell proposed the nulling interferometer for imaging extrasolar planets, and alumnus Bernard Mills led the building of the Mills Cross Telescope and the Molonglo Observatory Synthesis Telescope in the ACT. Alumni Philip K. Chapman, a scientist on the Apollo 14 Mission, and Paul Scully-Power, the first Australian-born astronaut to fly in space, also studied at the university. In the performing arts, alumni include soprano Joan Sutherland, Shakespearean actor John Bell, and producer and director Dolph Lundgren. Other notable alumni include Akhilesh Yadav, former chief minister of Uttar Pradesh, and John Horgan, premier of British Columbia. In community activism, alumni include Aboriginal activist Charlie Perkins, and feminists Eva Cox and Germaine Greer.

Controversies

The university has faced criticism over how it handles harassment and abuse. A quarter of female students living in residential colleges have been found to face harassment. From 2011 to 2016, the university reported 52 cases of abuse and harassment on campus, which led to one expulsion, one suspension and four reprimands. A 2017 report by the Australian Human Rights Commission found that reported figures were substantially higher. In a 2017 survey, 71% of students said they did not know how to make a report. Imogen Grant from the SRC said students who came forward felt that "navigating the university bureaucracy exacerbates trauma and often seems futile". The vice-chancellor said the university was committed to implementing all of the report's recommendations.

Staff pay has also been questioned. In 2015, staff passed a motion of no confidence in Spence, who received a performance bonus that took his total pay to $1 million. In 2021, the university announced that it had underpaid 12,894 staff a total of $12.75 million. In 2022, the Land and Environment Court of New South Wales fined the university $61,000 for disposing of a broken positron emission tomography scanner with a radioactive source inside at a scrap metal yard. In 2025, students were forced to sit on the floor because enrolments were too high, and the university had the second-worst student satisfaction rating in Australia. In late 2025, a major cyberattack accessed the personal information of thousands of students and staff, and about 20,000 staff, past and present, were affected.