University Council ANU is governed by a 15-member Council, whose members include the
Chancellor and
Vice-Chancellor.
Gareth Evans, a former
Foreign Minister of Australia, was ANU Chancellor from 2010 to December 2019 and
Brian Schmidt, an astrophysicist and Nobel Laureate, served as Vice-Chancellor from 1 January 2016 to 1 January 2024. Evans was succeeded as Chancellor by a fellow former Foreign Minister,
Julie Bishop, in January 2020. Schmidt was succeeded as Vice-Chancellor by cultural anthropologist and Distinguished Professor
Genevieve Bell in January 2024.
Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences 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 to
History,
Philosophy,
Sociology,
Politics &
International Relations,
Demography,
Arab and
Islamic Studies, and
European Studies, as well as the Australian National Centre for
Latin and American Studies, Centre for Aboriginal Economic Policy Research, and the ANU Centre for Social Research and Methods. RSHA contains schools of
Archaeology and
Anthropology;
Art &
Design; and
Literature,
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 the
ANU School of Music. 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. The college is also home to the Australian Studies Institute. 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." Its president is
Nicholas Southwood and key people include
Seth Lazar,
Geoff Brennan,
Bob Goodin, Frank Jackson, Philip Pettit and Michael Smith. is based at the ANU.
Asia and the Pacific The ANU College of Asia and the Pacific is a specialist centre of
Asian and
Pacific studies and languages, among the largest collections of experts in these fields of any university in the English-speaking world. The college is home to four academic schools: the
ANU 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; the
Coral 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. The college also houses the Australian Centre on China in the World, the
Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and the
Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific, Australia. 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. The
Crawford 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, the
East Asian Bureau of Economic Research, the Tax and Transfer Policy Institute, the ANU National Security College, the
East Asia Forum publication and a number of other centres. The Crawford School of Public Policy also hosts offices and programs for the
Australia 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. The college also has affiliation with
Indiana University's Pan Asia Institute.
Business and Economics The ANU College of Business and Economics comprises four schools, which carry research and teaching in
economics,
finance,
accounting,
actuarial studies,
statistics,
marketing and
management: • Research School of Management • Research School of Finance, Actuarial Studies and Statistics • Research School of Accounting • Research School of Economics Dedicated research centres within these schools include the Social Policy Evaluation, Analysis and Research Centre; the Australian National Centre for Audit and Assurance Research; the ANU Centre for Economic History; the National Centre for Information Systems Research; and the ANU Centre for Economic Policy Research. The college is professionally accredited with the
Institute of Chartered Accountants Australia,
CPA Australia, the
Australian Computer Society, the Actuaries Institute Australia, the
Institute of Public Accountants, the
Association of International Accountants, the
Chartered Financial Analyst Institute and the Statistical Society of Australia Inc. It also has membership of the
World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).
Systems and Society The
ANU 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 the
National Computational Infrastructure National Facility and was a co-founder of
NICTA, the chief
information 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. .
Law, Governance and Policy The
ANU 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 to
commercial law,
international law,
public law and
environmental law. In addition to numerous research programs, the college offers the professional
LL.B. and
J.D. degrees. It is the 7th oldest of Australia's 36
law schools and was ranked 2nd among Australian and 12th among world law schools by the 2018
QS Rankings. Students are given the chance to spend three weeks in
Geneva concerning the institutional practice of International Law.
Science and Medicine The
ANU College of Science and Medicine comprises the Research Schools of Astronomy & Astrophysics, Biology, Chemistry, Earth Sciences, and
Physics. Under the direction of
Mark Oliphant, nuclear physics was one of the university's most notable early research priorities, leading to the construction of a 500 megajoule
homopolar generator and a 7.7 megaelectronvolts
cyclotron in the 1950s. These devices were to be used as part of a 10.6 gigaelectronvolt
synchrotron particle accelerator that was never completed, however they remained in use for other research purposes.
Brian Schmidt (astrophysicist at
Mount Stromlo Observatory) received the 2011
Nobel Prize for Physics for his work on the accelerating expansion of the universe. The ANU College of Science & Medicine encompasses the
John Curtin School of Medical Research (JCSMR),
ANU Medical School, National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health, and Research School of Psychology. JCSMR was established in 1948 as a result of the vision of Nobel laureate
Howard Florey. Three further Nobel Prizes have been won as a result of research at JCSMR—in 1963 by
John Eccles and in 1996 by
Peter Doherty and
Rolf M. Zinkernagel.
Finances and endowment At the end of 2018, ANU recorded an endowment of A$1.8 billion. == Academic profile ==