The top university in Africa

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has leapt up 36 places to 223rd in the world, according to the latest report from the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR).

UCT placed first in the country and on the continent.

In the rankings published today, 18 000 institutions were assessed, making CWUR the largest academic ranking of global universities.

A change to the CWUR methodology introduced this year has enhanced the research contribution to 70% of the total score. This resulted in the big jump up in UCT’s ranking, demonstrating the impact of UCT’s research performance.

CWUR now uses seven indicators to rank the world’s universities without relying on surveys or university data submissions. These assess the quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, as well as total number of publications, publications in top-tier journals, publications in highly influential journals and publications that are highly cited.

The quality of education and quality of faculty indicators are measured by the number of alumni and faculty members who have won international awards, prizes and medals from a narrowly prescribed list relative to the university’s size.

The alumni employment indicator measures the number of alumni who have held chief executive officer positions in the world’s top companies (on the Forbes Global 2000 list) relative to the university’s size.