South Africa

Only one South African university ranked in top 300 in the world

The 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has been released with nine South African institutions listed.

The ranking of the 1,000 best universities was first published in 2003 and is updated every year by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy that took over the rankings in 2009.

More than 2,500 universities are ranked and only the top 1,000 are published.

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Worryingly for South Africa, the country only has one institution in the top 300. The University of Cape Town is in the 201-300 ranking bracket. The next best South African institution is the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which is in the 301-400 bracket.

ALSO READ: University rankings don’t measure what matters

The consultancy ranks the universities based on indicators that include: 

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  • The number of alumni and staff winning Nobel prizes and field medals;
  • Number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate;
  • Number of  articles published in the journals Nature and Science;
  • Number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index in the Web of Science;
  • Per capita performance of a university.

Top five universities

Harvard University in the United States of America is top of the list, closely followed by Stanford University in second and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in third.

The University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom is at number 4, with the University of California, Berkeley taking the fifth spot.

South African universities

UCT is South Africa’s top-ranked university, a spot it has held for four consecutive years.

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The University of Johannesburg has jumped 200 places since 2021, being ranked in the 601-700 category.

Top nine South African universities

InstitutionWorld rankNational rank
University of Cape Town201-3001
University of Witswatersrand301-400 2
Stellenbosch University401-5003-5
University of Johannesburg401-5003-5
University of Pretoria401-5003-5
University of KwaZulu-Natal501-6006
University of North West 601-7007
University of Free State901-10008-9
University of South Africa901-10008-9
Source: ShanghaiRanking

NOW READ: Out of 100 students, only 12 go to university – Nzimande

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By Kgomotso Phooko
Read more on these topics: universityUniversity of Cape Town (UCT)