The rankings assess universities against the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), which include ending poverty, climate action and gender equality.

The University of Newcastle achieved top spot globally for the 17^th SDG - partnering for a more sustainable future, and third for affordable and clean energy, which helped lift the university's overall ranking from 45^th to 12^th internationally.

The university's Pro Vice-Chancellor Academic Excellence Professor Jennifer Milam said the number one spot reflected the university's commitment to working with a wide range of stakeholders to achieve tangible results.

"We're using research to work in partnership with government and industry to achieve all of the 16 goals," she said.

"For a long time research was something just used by other researchers, but now its being used in the wider world to bring about real change."

The University's partnerships for a better world include its partnership with the City of Newcastle, which led to the naming of Newcastle as a United Nations City in 2015 and the establishment of CIFAL Newcastle - a United Nations International Training Centre for Authorities and Leaders at the University of Newcastle.

Other partnerships committed to the pursuit of SDGs include with Newcastle Institute for Energy and Resources, the Hunter SDG taskforce, the NSW Energy and Resources Knowledge Hub, the World Technologies University Network and the Pacific Node research program.

Professor Milam said it was satisfying to have achieved an improved ranking as it showed the university was making good progress towards tackling the big problems the world currently faces.

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