The University of Adelaide (Adelaide Uni)

Australia

The University of Adelaide is a world-class research and teaching institution situated in the heart of one of the world’s most liveable cities. Founded in 1874, we are Australia’s third oldest university, South Australia’s clear research leader, and consistently rank inside the world’s top 140.

Our reputation for breaking new ground has been forged by a continuous stream of exceptional people. We count among our alumni five Nobel Laureates, over 140 Fulbright Scholars and more than 100 Rhodes Scholars, including Australia’s first female Indigenous recipient. The country’s first female prime minister and Supreme Court judge were also University of Adelaide graduates.

We currently have 12 Clarivate Highly Cited Researchers (2019), and, since 2001 our academics have received 11 coveted Australian Research Council Federation and Laureate Fellowships.

Today, our high-achieving culture continues to attract the world’s best and brightest- discipline leaders from around the globe and close to 8,000 international students from more than 90 countries, representing around 29% of our near-27,000 total student body.

Research impact

The University of Adelaide is committed to conducting future-making research with global impact. A member of Australia’s prestigious Group of Eight (Go8) research-intensive universities, we address the world’s greatest challenges.

Our researchers work closely across multiple disciplines and in productive partnership with industry, government and leading institutions around the globe.

The resulting outputs are universally rated ‘world standard or above’ by the Australian Government’s Excellence in Research for Australia assessment (2018). This includes the highest possible rating in 41 distinct fields, spanning engineering, mathematics, science, medical and health sciences, agriculture and artificial intelligence.

Importantly, our work generates tangible community benefit. A London Economics report commissioned by the Go8 in 2018 valued our total contribution to South Australia’s economy at over AUS$4.23 billion.

* 2018 Times Higher Education world university rankings and the QS rankings

1 December 2018 - 30 November 2019

Region: Global
Subject/journal group: All

The table to the right includes counts of all research outputs for The University of Adelaide (Adelaide Uni) published between 1 December 2018 - 30 November 2019 which are tracked by the Nature Index.

Hover over the donut graph to view the FC output for each subject. Below, the same research outputs are grouped by subject. Click on the subject to drill-down into a list of articles organized by journal, and then by title.

Note: Articles may be assigned to more than one subject area.

Count	Share
229	38.73

Outputs by subject (Share)

Subject	Count	Share
Life Sciences	71	9.83
Physical Sciences	94	7.12
Chemistry	45	19.10
Earth & Environmental Sciences	39	7.33

Highlight of the month

Unravelling the origin of wine’s sharp flavour

A key step by which grapevines produce tartaric acid, an important component for wine colour and flavour, has been discovered by a University of Adelaide-led team.

Tartaric acid is produced by grapevines, and it gives wine its pleasantly sharp flavour.

Previous research had shown that tartaric acid is produced by degradation of ascorbic acid (vitamin C) in grapevines. But not all the enzymes involved in the multistep conversion of ascorbic acid to tartaric acid in the plant had been identified.

Researchers have now identified the enzyme catalysing one step in the process, in which the ascorbate breakdown product 2-keto-L-gulonic acid is converted to L-idonic acid.

The team did this by searching for grapevine enzymes with a similar structure to a known enzyme from E. coli that catalyses a closely related reaction. The grapevine enzyme they identified was the first of its kind discovered in any plant.

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