As I mentioned in an all staff email last week, the 2011 Good Universities Guide has been released. The Guide is a commercial publication, but bases its rankings on data obtained from the Course Experience Questionnaire, the Graduate Destination Survey and data reported by Universities to the Federal Government. As a result, the Guide is largely data driven. Universities are rated in a number of categories with between one and five stars. A rating of five stars indicates the institution is in the top 20%, four stars the top 40% etc.

Swinburne's results are quite remarkable. Firstly, we have improved in our rankings in almost all of the categories. Swinburne has received the maximum five stars in each of the Learning & Teaching categories of: Teaching Quality, Generic Skills and Graduate Satisfaction. Only one other University in Melbourne (Ballarat) received five stars in any of these categories.

In research, we have received four stars in Research Intensivity (research income per member of academic staff), the same as Monash and one star behind Melbourne. Swinburne has also received the maximum five stars for Staff Qualifications, the only University in Melbourne to achieve this. This is a particularly pleasing outcome, as we have worked very hard on this measure for a number of years. I looked back at previous years and in 2003, we rated only one star in Staff Qualifications - a remarkable change.

Overall, we rank equal first with Monash in terms of the total number of stars received. This is something of which we all should be very proud.

These results clearly show that our strategy of building quality in both teaching and research is working and that the investment we are making in both people and facilities will set the institution up for further success. In the next couple of months, the University will release the revised vision for 2015. This document will build on the successful foundation we have developed and outline how we can continue the success.

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate all our staff who have contributed to this outstanding performance.