Seven UCT subjects in top 100

The University of Cape Town (UCT) has been ranked among the top 100 institutions globally for seven subjects in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2020. Development studies was the university’s top-ranked discipline at 10th globally.

UCT remains one of the top destinations in the world to learn about and research development studies, according to the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject. UCT managed to retain its spot in the top 10 globally for the subject, although it dropped one position from 9th to 10th compared to last year.

UCT had six additional subjects ranked in the 51–100 band – anatomy & physiology, anthropology, archaeology, architecture/built environment, geography, and medicine – bringing its total number of subjects in the top 100 to seven. This is the first time since 2016 that medicine at UCT has been ranked among the top 100.

In the broad subject areas, UCT ranked as follows: arts & humanities (168th); engineering & technology (307th); life sciences & medicine (112nd) and natural sciences (230th).

UCT’s strongest field, life sciences & medicine, held steady at 112nd position – the same as in 2019.

To produce the 2020 rankings, QS analysed information for 1 369 institutions across 48 subjects grouped into five broad areas. It combines information from four sources – weighted differently depending on the discipline – to produce their results.

The four sources are two global surveys of academics and employers, used to assess international reputation in each subject, and two indicators, research citations per paper and h-index in the relevant subject (both drawn from Elsevier’s Scopus database) used to assess research impact.

During November 2019, Times Higher Education released their latest subject rankings, which placed UCT among the top 100 globally for two subjects – clinical, pre-clinical and health, and social sciences. UCT moved up seven places from 72nd to 65th for clinical, pre-clinical and health. And in social sciences, the university dropped three positions from 89th to 92nd.

Review the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject.

Read more about the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2020 methodology.