A national survey by the Human Rights Commission has found 3.5 per cent of Australian National University (ANU) students were sexually assaulted on campus last year.
The sexual harassment and sexual assault figures for the ANU, one of Australia's leading universities, were significantly higher than those recorded nationally.
Nationally, 1.6 per cent of survey respondents reported being sexually assaulted in a university setting (including while travelling to or from university) in 2015 or 2016.
ANU's survey results show the rate for the Canberra campus was double that, with 3.5 per cent (or 52 respondents) claiming to have been sexually assaulted on campus last year.
More than a third of ANU students who responded to the survey also reported some form of sexual harassment on campus, compared with a quarter of students nationally.
Vice-chancellor Brian Schmidt described the results as shocking and apologised to the victims.
"To every member of our community who is affected and who is suffering because of it, I say to you, you do have our support," Professor Schmidt said.
Professor Schmidt said in 74 per cent of the incidents of sexual harassment, the perpetrator was another student and in 5 per cent of incidents it was a lecturer or a tutor.
He also said 82 per cent of harassment reports involved men as the perpetrators.
ANU had a very high participation rate for the survey, of 1,477 students, one of the highest response rates in the country.
While the announcement was being made a cohort of students, some of whom had experienced sexual harassment or assault, protested outside about the culture of the ANU.
Some students had tape over their mouths, which they said represented "survivors and survivor advocates who had been silenced by the university".
ANU announced earlier this month that students would have access to a full-time on-campus specialist sexual assault counsellor.
They also said yesterday that the university was expecting more sexual assault victims to come forward after the "shocking" and "ugly" picture of the problem at the ANU was revealed.
'One incident is too many'
A much smaller percentage of the University of Canberra (UC) student population participated in the voluntary survey.
The results from UC indicated a slightly lower rate of students being sexual assaulted in a university setting than their national counterparts, and a much lower rate than ANU students.
But 7.2 per cent of UC respondents said they had experienced sexual assault in their everyday lives over the past two years, compared to 6.9 per cent nationally.
Vice-chancellor Deep Saini said "one incident is one too many" and he "choked up" while reading some of the responses.
"Sexual and interpersonal violence have no place at our university," Professor Saini said.
"The report shows that there is work to do and the results will help us inform how we can work harder to improve our education programs, our support services, policies and practices."
Professor Saini said he also wanted to improve the reporting rates for sexual offences.
"We're going to collectively try to shift the culture towards reporting," he said.
"The provision for reporting has always been there, but obviously students are not aware of that."
When releasing the results UC announced they had also appointed former sex discrimination commissioner Elizabeth Broderick to review the culture within the university and the student body.
