Johannesburg- Times Higher Education (THE) dynamically built up the World University rankings from information provided by universities across the globe and released the data.
THE World University Rankings more than 1 600 research-intensive universities across all their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
While the University of Cape Town tied at 183rd with the University of Notre Dame (US), it continues to remain as one of Africa’s top universities.
Their performance moved up 23 places compared to the previous year in the teaching category.
Despite the drop in other categories UCT continued contribution to local and global knowledge through innovative research with increased scores in the research category.
It was also ranked in the 201-300 band in the ShanghaiRanking’s Academic Ranking of the World Universities (ARWU) -published on August 15, 2021.
UCT is confirmed to be the highest-ranked university in Africa on all five major university rankings; THE, ARWU, the Quacquarelli Symonds (released in June 2021), Center for World University Rankings (released in April 2021) and U.S News & World Report Best Global Universities Rankings (released in October 2020)
“Although the rankings are but just a gaze which does not fully indicate the impact of the university in other crucial areas such as social responsiveness, we are pleased to note that UCT continues doing well on the international arena while remaining the best for Africa”, said UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng.
Phakeng also stated that the top ranks achieved by UCT are a result of the work done by their researchers and everyone else who continues to do their ultimate best to support the staff in the mission to elevate the university, “many staff members contribute in countless different ways to ensure that the university’s ship continues sailing in a sea of excellence”. She also took to consideration the COVID-19 pandemic noting that the rankings were attained at a challenging time with the #UCTFire being but a few of the afflictions the university had to circumnavigate.
“We have continued producing cutting-edge research, across particularly challenging years, in our endeavor to keep contributing to finding solutions to complex problems and building a sustainable future. The performance in the rankings reflects the commitment to excellence that our research community continues to show while at the same time being strongly focused on impact in our local context. These strengths have been clearly shown in the response of UCT researchers to COVID-19”, said UCT Deputy Vice-Chancellor Research and Internationalisation, Professor Sue Harrison.
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