Australia has six universities in the top global 100, according to the latest rankings from Times Higher Education, one of the world's most followed indicators of university quality.
UNSW has joined five other universities - Melbourne, Australian National University, Sydney, Queensland and Monash - in the top 100 of the World University Rankings.
UNSW vice-chancellor Ian Jacobs welcomed his university's upward progress, being named at 82 compared with 109 last year. 
"This means that we have improved our position in all the major university rankings this year, and demonstrates we are on exactly the right trajectory to achieve our ambition to be well amongst the world's top 50 universities by 2025," he said.
Australia's top institution, the University of Melbourne, maintained its position at 33rd in the world, and this year has the distinction of hosting Times Higher Education's World Academic Summit, where the 2015 rankings were announced Thursday.
Globally, Caltech, Oxford, Stanford, Cambridge and MIT were named the world's top five, in that order. Harvard was number six.
Times Higher Education has revamped this year's rankings to include 800 universities globally, compared to 400 previously, and says the information it uses is now richer and more detailed.
"It's a much more wide-ranging and balanced assessment of the institutions," said Rob Grimshaw, chief executive of TES Global, the company which owns Times Higher Education.
He said that the number of data points used to construct the rankings had gone from six to about 100 and universities were included from 30 countries which were not represented before.
The revamp of the ranking system has been kind to Australia's middle ranking universities with nine universities now in the 201 to 300 range, compared to five last year.
Lower ranked universities have also done well with Perth's Edith Cowan University being named in the 501 to 600 range - a major improvement considering it did not make Times Higher Education's list of top 800 universities last year.
Its vice-chancellor, Steve Chapman, said he was delighted the university's work to develop its teaching and learning was being recognised.
Times Higher Education rankings editor Phil Baty said that Australia was the seventh most-represented country this year, with 31 institutions in the top 800 and an "impressive" 22 institutions in the top 400.
"I think Australia is in a really good position. It's got a very good opportunity to make the most of the Asian century," he said.
But Mr Baty said the big worry for Australia was ensuring sustainable funding for higher education. "That's the unanswered question," he said.
He noted that Australia's research and development spending dropped to 2.2 per cent of the federal budget in 2014.
"Australia will have to raise its game to ensure it can compete with the leading Western powerhouses of the US and the UK and rising stars in Asia that are heavily investing in research," Mr Baty said.
Belinda Robinson, chief executive of Universities Australia, said Mr Baty was correct.
"Our global competitors are looking the future squarely in the eyes with major investments in higher education, research and innovation. Australia now needs to step up our own level of public investment or we risk being left behind," she said.


Climbing the ladder
Australian unis in world rankings
33   University of Melbourne
52   Australian National University
56   University of Sydney
60   University of Queensland
73  Monash University 
82   UNSW
109   University of Western Australia
149  University of Adelaide
201-250 0 Charles Darwin Uni, Flinders Uni, Griffith Uni, James Cook Uni, Uni of Newcastle, Qld Uni of Tech, Uni of Tasmania, Uni of Wollongong.
SOURCE: TIMES HIGHER ED WORLD UNI RANKINGS