South Africa’s universities rank among the top 100 in the world for these subjects – including space science

US News has published its latest Best Global University Ranking for 2022/23, listing 13 South African universities among the best in the world – four of which have ranked among the top 100 schools in nine subjects.

The rankings looked at the top 2,000 tertiary institutions globally, ranking them with a specific focus on schools’ academic research and reputation overall – not on their separate undergraduate or graduate programs.

On top of the global ranking, US News looked at where universities ranked in 47 subject fields. The 13 South African institutions that made the 2022/23 list also found their way onto rankings across many of these fields, ranking within the top 100 in nine of them.

The University of Cape Town was the most highly-ranked local university, appearing in the top 100 five times. This is followed by the University of the Witwatersrand, UKZN and the University of Pretoria with two top-100 rankings, as well as the Tshwane University of Technology featuring once.

Overall, South Africa’s universities are most represented in the fields of infectious diseases, immunology, public health and ecology. However, a few schools stand out uniquely in other fields.

For instance, the Tshwane University of Technology ranks 36th in the world in the field of optics – while the University of Pretoria ranks 85th overall for business and economics. The University of KwaZulu Natal, meanwhile, ranks within the top 100 for space science.

The tables below outline the top subjects at all 13 South African universities ranked – with top-100 subjects highlighted in green.

University of Cape Town

University of KwaZulu Natal

Stellenbosch University

University of Pretoria

University of the Witwatersrand

University of Johannesburg

North-West University

University of South Africa

University of the Western Cape

Tshwane University of Technology

Nelson Mandela University

University of the Free State

Rhodes University

Methodology

In assessing the subjects for the ranking, the data and metrics used in the ranking were provided by Clarivate. The bibliometric data was based on the Web of Science.

Papers are limited to those published between 2016 and 2020. However, the citations to those papers come from all publications up to the most recent data available. For the 2022-2023 edition, this cutoff was May 29, 2022, with an InCites publication of June 28, 2022.

It is necessary to use a slightly older window of publication to allow citations to accumulate and provide statistically relevant results, US News said.

The use of survey data and published information is used with a host of other data points using the following indicators and weighting:

• Global research reputation – 12.5%
• Regional research reputation – 12.5%
• Publications – 10%
• Books – 2.5%
• Conferences – 2.5%
• Normalized citation impact – 10%
• Total citations – 7.5%
• Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited – 12.5%
• Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited – 10%
• International collaboration – relative to country – 5%
• International collaboration – 5%
• Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective field – 5%

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