Produced in exclusive partnership with The Australian, the 2023 edition of the RESEARCH magazine highlights the top 250 researchers in Australia pushing the boundaries of human knowledge and innovation.

This year's overarching theme focuses on the "Ten Tough Challenges" within the academic sector. We explore how dynamic leadership and fresh thinking are accelerating research outcomes and driving real world impact across the nation's universities.

Key Themes Explored in 2023

• The Top 250 Researchers
  Our proprietary, data-driven methodology identifying Australia's leading minds across eight distinct academic disciplines.

• Ten Tough Challenges
  An in depth look at how universities are confronting urgent global issues, including renewable energy, healthy ageing, food and agriculture, and disability rehabilitation.

• Medical and Quantum Technology
  Highlighting the cutting edge advancements in medical devices and the rapidly evolving, high stakes quantum technology sector.

• Universities and Business
  Exploring the entrepreneurial goals of academic institutions and how researchers are mixing it with the commercial sector to drive tangible outcomes.

Our Data Science Methodology
Behind the journalism is League of Scholars' rigorous data engine. To find the Top 250 research leaders, our team uses advanced analytics to process publicly available information from Google Scholar. We calculate a specific "impact score" for every Australian researcher and institution, based on the number of citations their papers have received in the top 20 journals of their respective fields over the past five years. This evidence-based approach removes subjectivity, rewarding research quality, impact, and volume to provide a definitive, quantifiable landscape of Australian academic excellence.