UQ's long-standing reputation for quality is reinforced by recent awards and affiliations with prestigious national and international groups.

The 2005 Good Universities Guides awarded UQ the best ratings of any university in Queensland, and one of the very best in the country. UQ received the maximum five-star rating in eight major categories including prestige, student demand, research intensivity, getting a job, positive graduate outcomes, non-government earnings, research grants, and toughness to get in (UQ St Lucia).

UQ is also a founding member of the Group of Eight (Go8). This elite group of Australian universities collectively enrols a third of all university students and conducts 70% of all university research in Australia. Go8 graduates boast a full-time employment rate almost 5% above that of other Australian universities.

UQ is one of only three Australian members of Universitas 21 - a select international network of comprehensive, research-intensive universities committed to world-best quality and practice.

UQ was named among the top universities in the world in a ranking compiled by the prestigious Times Higher Education Supplement in November 2004.