UNSW is renowned for the quality of its graduates and its commitment to new and creative approaches to education and research. Its motto - Scientia Manu et Mente ("Knowledge by Hand and Mind") - encapsulates the University's central philosophy of balancing the practical and the scholarly.

UNSW is a founding member of the prestigious Group of Eight research intensive universities in Australia and a member of the Universitas 21 international consortium.

Established in 1949, UNSW has expanded rapidly and now has close to 40,000 students, including more than 7000 international students from over 130 different countries. The University offers more than 600 undergraduate and 300 postgraduate programs, and has developed an extensive network of alumni chapters throughout Asia.

The main UNSW campus is located on a 38-hectare site at Kensington, seven kilometres from the centre of Sydney. Other campuses are the College of Fine Arts (Paddington), UNSW@ ADFA (Canberra), and sub-campuses at Randwick and Coogee, as well as research stations around NSW.

The University was ranked 44th in the world in the UK’s 2007 Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) World University Rankings.

UNSW received the maximum five-star rating for nine key performance indicators, well above any other G08 University, in the 2008 Good Universities Guide. In total points across all categories, UNSW is the national leader, outrating all other universities.

It achieved a top score for student demand, graduate starting salaries, research grants, research intensivity, student–staff ratios, cultural diversity, gender balance, and international enrolments.