The University of Cape Town remains the top university in South Africa, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2018.
Published today, the report puts the Mother City’s tertiary institute ahead of fellow provincial and national universities by a considerable margin.
However, UCT’s ranking has declined steadily over the past six years, where in 2011, the university was ranked at 107 in the world – last year’s position was at 148.
How does scoring work? Times Higher Education judges research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. Thirteen carefully-calibrated performance indicators are used to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons.
In terms of local universities faring amongst their global peers, this year’s rankings saw UCT take 171st spot in the world – the highest-scoring in South Africa, followed by the University of the Witwatersrand finishing in the 251-300 segment, Stellenbosch University in 351-400, the University of Kwa-Zulu Natal in 401-500 and the University of Johannesburg at 601-800.
Two out of three of the best South African universities came from the Western Cape.
Topping the list at number one spot is the University of Oxford, followed by the University of Cambridge (both in the United Kingdom) and in third place the California Institute of Technology.
Read the full World University Rankings 2018 here.
Photography University of Cape Town