UCT climbs to 120 in THE world university rankings

UCT has risen to 120 in the Times Higher Education 2015/2016 university rankings.

“It is once again gratifying to see UCT sit comfortably in the top 200 in these THE World Rankings,” says Professor Danie Visser, Deputy Vice-Chancellor for research andinternationalisation at UCT. “We are particularly proud at the jump in scores for research and teaching, which attest to the focus we at UCT place not only on educating the next generation of African leaders but also on high-quality research to tackle the continent's development challenges.”

The rankings are generated from five “pillars” - teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook - which each represent a key area of excellence in higher education.UCT has improved its scores in four out of the five areas, compared with last year's results:

• Teaching: 34.9 from 26.8
• Research: 38.7 from 35.3
• Industry Income: 92.8 from 88
• International Outlook: 80.2 from 76.7
• Citation scores: 85.6 from 86.6

Significantly, UCT's scores are above the median score for all universities in each of the five areas. UCT scores particularly high in Industry Income (reflecting the impact of our research and input on industry), which puts the university in the top 10% of universities worldwide; for Teaching UCT is in the top 30%, while for all the other categories it is in the top 25%.

Professor Visser says: “While we do celebrate our position in these global rankings, it must be borne in mind that different institutions have different strengths and weaknesses and the rankings do not necessarily measure some crucial aspects of a university's mission, including assisting and supporting financially disadvantaged students – an important priority for UCT and a focus on community outreach projects to address societal challenges such as poverty and inequality, violence and infectious diseases. Nevertheless, these rankings do send out a message globally that students will get an excellent education in South Africa, and that our research is leading the way in solving the problems of the continent.”