The University of Cape Town (UCT) continues to stand as the top university in Africa, while holding its ninth position in the 2019 Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings.
The Emerging Economies Rankings include 442 universities from 43 countries. South Africa has nine universities featured in the rankings, up from eight last year, and seven of its universities remain in the top 200.
The rankings use the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings to judge universities’ strengths across teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.
As opposed to THE World University Rankings however, the weightings are recalibrated to better reflect the characteristics and priorities of universities in emerging economies. For example, a heavier weighting is given to an emerging economy university’s industry links and international outlook.
UCT’s scores in the teaching and research categories have improved from last year, as well as the reputation survey scores.
These increases offer an indication of the tertiary institution’s positive international reputation amongst academics worldwide. The considerable improvement in the research category score also verifies UCT’s reputation as a leading research-intensive institution.
Cementing the university as a top choice for international students, the scores for the international outlook category increased too. The increase in the citations category also points to the continued impact and influence of UCT’s research.
The industry income category, which reflects UCT’s research impact and contribution to industry, has experienced a slight drop in the THE rankings. However, this remains the category in which the university scores highest.
Internationally, China continues to dominate the ranking, claiming 63 – or one in every six – positions in the table, up from 52 last year. Peking University and Tsinghua University rank in first and second place respectively for the fifth consecutive year, while Zhejiang University has moved up three places to third position, displacing Lomonosov Moscow State University and pushing it down to fifth place.
Below are the top ten universities in the Emerging Economies University Rankings from 2019 Times Higher Education.
Picture: Times Higher Education/ Pixabay