UCT in top 10 emerging economy universities

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has been ranked 10th in the world and the best in Africa according to the 2020 Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings, a relative ranking of 533 universities in 47 countries with emerging economies.

While these rankings use the same 13 performance indicators as for the THE World University Rankings to assess institutions across their teaching, research, research impact, industry income and international outlook, the indicators are recalibrated to reflect the characteristics and priorities of universities in emerging economies. More weighting is given to a university’s industry links and international outlook, for example.

Compared to last year, when UCT was placed 9th in the same rankings, the university’s scores increased in the teaching, research and citation categories, pointing to the growing impact and influence of UCT in these areas.

“While it uses the same 13 performance indicators as the THE World University Rankings … the indicators are recalibrated to reflect the characteristics and priorities of universities in emerging economies.”

Scores for the international outlook categories dropped only slightly, indicating UCT remains a destination of choice for international students. Despite a small drop in the industry income category score, this remains one of UCT’s strongest categories, reflecting UCT’s research impact and contribution to industry.

China led the rankings with seven universities in the top 10. Tsinghua University maintained overall top position with Peking University again taking second place. Russia, South Africa and Taiwan are the only other countries represented in the top 10.

The rankings include institutions classified by the London Stock Exchange’s FTSE Group as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier”.

2020 THE World University Rankings

Last year, UCT jumped up 20 places to 136th position in the 2020 THE World University Rankings, which assessed almost 1 400 institutions worldwide. This put UCT in the top spot in the country and the continent.

View the full 2020 THE Emerging Economies University Rankings.