Bond a fast mover in research excellence

Bond University has been named among 15 Australian universities whose research influence grew the fastest in the past year.

The Australian newspaper’s 2025 Research magazine also named two Bond researchers – Honorary Adjunct Professor Liz Isenring and Assistant Professor Alex Acheampong – as Australian research leaders in their respective fields of nutrition science and economic policy.

The magazine’s “fast movers” category (paywall) is based on the quality and quantity of universities’ research output which must have grown by more than 5 percent in the past year.

Bond University Vice Chancellor and President, Professor Tim Brailsford, said the recognition was the result of a push to encourage greater research collaboration across the university and its faculties.

“We were trying to move away from the lone ranger approach to research to more typical science-based research, which is built around teams and not so dependent upon individuals,” he said.

The accolades for research came after Bond University rose three places on The Australian Financial Review Best Universities Ranking (paywall) and took the top spot for teaching.

The university is ninth on the list, up from 12th last year.

Bond University also achieved top-three rankings in every category of the federal government’s 2023 Student Experience Survey, released in early November.

The annual Department of Education survey asked students at 42 Australian universities about their educational experience.

In the ‘overall quality of entire educational experience’ category, 88.3 percent of surveyed Bond undergraduate students rated their experience positively. Only the University of Divinity (89.8 percent) and Avondale University (89.7 percent) scored higher.

Bond was ranked first or second in every other category:

• Skills development: 2nd, 91.4 percent positive (10.6 percent above the average of all Australian universities)
• Peer engagement: 1st, 85.6 percent positive (27.7 percent above the average)
• Teaching quality and engagement: 2nd, 90.3 percent (9.9 percent above the average)
• Student support and services: 2nd, 86.1 percent (15.5 percent above the average)
• Learning resources: 2nd, 92.5 percent ( 8.2 percent above the average)