These 4 South African universities have been ranked among the top 500 in the world

Four universities in Gauteng and the Western Cape have ranked in the top 500 universities in the world on the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The rankings looked at 1,904 universities from 108 counties, with over 134 million citations analysed across 16.5 research publications and surveys from nearly 70,000 scholars globally. Overall, there were just over 400,000 data points entered from the over 2,600 institutions that submitted data.

The rankings are based on Times Higher Education’s new WUR 3.0 methodology, which includes performance indicators that calculate a university’s performance across five areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry, and international outlook:

The University of Cape Town was ranked the best university in Africa, placing 167th.

“These results are a testament to the outstanding work and commitment of our university community without which our consistently high rankings would not be possible,” said Vice Chancellor interim Emeritus Professor Daya Reddy. 

“The deep disciplinary expertise, together with the great and rapid growing interdisciplinary work across our academic departments, and the geographical advantage of our location, all allow us to make valuable contributions to knowledge that has an impact on our continent and beyond – contributing to the growth of African and global knowledge.”

Stellenbosch University and the University of the Witwatersrand were also ranked between 301-350 globally.

Despite being named the best university in South Africa in the Times Higher Education’s Impact Rankings, the University of Johannesburg has to settle for fourth in South Africa, with a global ranking between 401-500.

In addition, the University of KwaZulu-Natal, University of Pretoria, North-West University, University of the Western Cape and the University of the Free State made the top 1,000.

The rankings of South Africa’s universities can be found below:

Looking internationally, the University of Oxford was named the best university in the world for the eighth year in a row.

Stanford University moved up the ranks to second place, whilst Harvard University dropped down to fourth.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) jumped up two places to third, whereas Cambridge University dropped to fifth from third last year.

The top 10 universities in the world were either in the USA or UK:

1. University of Oxford, UK
2. Stanford University, USA
3. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA
4. Harvard University, USA
5. University of Cambridge, UK
6. Princeton University, USA
7. California University of Technology, USA
8. Imperial College London, UK
9. University of California, Berkeley, USA
10. Yale University, USA

Read: Ranking the top 26 universities in South Africa