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Only one South African university ranked in top 300 in the world
Although nine South African institutions were listed, only one ranked in the top 300.
The UCT campus buildings. Picture: iStock
The 2022 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) has been released with nine South African institutions listed.
The ranking of the 1,000 best universities was first published in 2003 and is updated every year by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy that took over the rankings in 2009.
More than 2,500 universities are ranked and only the top 1,000 are published.
Worryingly for South Africa, the country only has one institution in the top 300. The University of Cape Town is in the 201-300 ranking bracket. The next best South African institution is the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which is in the 301-400 bracket.
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The consultancy ranks the universities based on indicators that include:
- The number of alumni and staff winning Nobel prizes and field medals;
- Number of highly cited researchers selected by Clarivate;
- Number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science;
- Number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index in the Web of Science;
- Per capita performance of a university.
Top five universities
Harvard University in the United States of America is top of the list, closely followed by Stanford University in second and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in third.
The University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom is at number 4, with the University of California, Berkeley taking the fifth spot.
South African universities
UCT is South Africa’s top-ranked university, a spot it has held for four consecutive years.
The University of Johannesburg has jumped 200 places since 2021, being ranked in the 601-700 category.
Top nine South African universities
| Institution | World rank | National rank |
| University of Cape Town | 201-300 | 1 |
| University of Witswatersrand | 301-400 | 2 |
| Stellenbosch University | 401-500 | 3-5 |
| University of Johannesburg | 401-500 | 3-5 |
| University of Pretoria | 401-500 | 3-5 |
| University of KwaZulu-Natal | 501-600 | 6 |
| University of North West | 601-700 | 7 |
| University of Free State | 901-1000 | 8-9 |
| University of South Africa | 901-1000 | 8-9 |
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