The Australian National University

  The Australian National University (ANU) is a public university in Canberra, Australian Capital Territory. Located in the suburb of Acton, the main campus encompasses seven teaching and research colleges, in addition to several national institutes.
               

Founded in 1946, it is the only university to have been created by the Parliament of Australia. Originally a postgraduate research university, ANU commenced undergraduate teaching in 1960 when it integrated the Canberra University College, which had been established in 1929 as a campus of the University of Melbourne. ANU enrols 10,359 undergraduate and 9,674 postgraduate students and employs 3,958 staff. The university's endowment stood at A$1.1306 billion in 2012.

ANU is consistently ranked among the world's top universities. ANU is ranked co-equal 25th in the world with Duke University (first in Australia) by the 2014/15 QS World University Rankings,45th in the world (second in Australia) by the 2014/2015 Times Higher Education World University Rankings. In the 2014 Times Higher Education Global Employability University Ranking, an annual ranking of university graduates' employability, ANU was ranked 20th in the world (first in Australia).

ANU counts six Nobel laureates among its faculty and alumni. Students entering ANU in 2013 had a median Australian Tertiary Admission Rank of 93, the equal-highest among Australian universities. ANU was named the world's 7th most international university in a 2014 study by Times Higher Education.


Calls for the establishment of a national university in Australia began as early as 1900. After the location of the nation's capital, Canberra, was determined in 1908, land was set aside for the university at the foot Black Mountain in the city designs by Walter Burley Griffin. Planning for the university was disrupted by World War II but resumed with the creation of the Department of Post-War Reconstruction in 1942, ultimately leading to the passage of the Australian National University Act 1946 by the Parliament of Australia on 1 August 1946.


Remains of the ANU homopolar generator designed by Mark Oliphant
A group of eminent Australian scholars returned from overseas to join the university, including Sir Howard Florey (co-developer of medicinal penicillin), Sir Mark Oliphant (a nuclear physicist who worked on the Manhattan Project), Sir Keith Hancock (the Chichele Professor of Economic History at Oxford) and Sir Raymond Firth (a professor of anthropology at LSE). Economist Sir Douglas Copland was appointed as ANU's first Vice-Chancellor and former Prime Minister Stanley Bruce served as the first Chancellor.  ANU was originally organised into four centres—the Research Schools of Physical Sciences, Social Sciences and Pacific Studies and the John Curtin School of Medical Research.