South African’s universties rank the best in the world when it comes to forging international partnerships, scoring the highest average in the latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) global rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South African universities are among the best in the world when it comes to partnering with other countries to conduct research, and maintains these relationships long-term to drive global knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is one of the standout findings in the 2026 QS World University Rankings, where 11 South African universities made the cut.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rankings evaluate over 1,500 institutions across 106 countries and territories, with a key focus on research and discovery, which accounts for 50% of the final score.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As reflecting in other rankings that have come out this year, South Africa’s universities continue to face headwinds, with only three of the 11 ranked moving up the list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this, South Africa is still home to Sub-Saharan Africa\u2019s best university, the University of Cape Town, which saw its overall global ranking increase from 171 in 2025 to 150 in 2026.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University of Johannesburg (308) and the University of KwaZulu-Natal (587) were the only other institutions to see their rankings rise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Six institutions dropped in the rankings, with South Africa losing ground to global competitors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The overall rankings are measured across five performance lenses, which are then broken down into nine indicators with different weights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Notably, nine South African universities feature in the global top 150 in the International Research Network Indicator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This indicator measures the success of creating and sustaining international research partnerships by looking at the number of different countries represented, and whether these relationships are renewed and repeated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ranking only considers sustained partnerships, defined as those which result in three or more joint papers published in a five-year period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University of Johannesburg ranks at number 14 worldwide in the indicator with a score of 99.1, while the Universities of Cape Town, Pretoria and Witwatersrand also make the top 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has the highest average score in the indicator. South Africa’s average of 91.1 is narrowly ahead of Denmark’s 90.1 and Sweden’s 88.8.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
That said, the ranking also suggests that global competition is gaining on South Africa\u2019s leading position, with six of South Africa’s universities failing in the rankings, while only three improved.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SA Rank<\/strong><\/th>| 2026 Rank<\/strong><\/th> | 2025 Rank<\/strong><\/th> | Institution<\/strong><\/th><\/tr><\/thead> | 1<\/td> | 150<\/mark><\/td> | 171<\/td> | University of Cape Town<\/td><\/tr> | 2<\/td> | 291<\/mark><\/td> | =267<\/td> | University of The Witwatersrand<\/td><\/tr> | 3<\/td> | 302<\/mark><\/td> | 296<\/td> | Stellenbosch University<\/td><\/tr> | 4<\/td> | =308<\/mark><\/td> | =312<\/td> | University of Johannesburg<\/td><\/tr> | 5<\/td> | =362<\/mark><\/td> | 354<\/td> | University of Pretoria<\/td><\/tr> | 6<\/td> | =558<\/mark><\/td> | =587<\/td> | University of Kwazulu-Natal<\/td><\/tr> | 7<\/td> | 901-950<\/mark><\/td> | 851-900<\/td> | University of South Africa<\/td><\/tr> | 8=<\/td> | 951-1000<\/mark><\/td> | 851-900<\/td> | North-West University<\/td><\/tr> | 8=<\/td> | 951-1000<\/td> | 951-1000<\/td> | University of the Western Cape<\/td><\/tr> | 10=<\/td> | 1001-1200<\/mark><\/td> | 951-1000<\/td> | Rhodes University<\/td><\/tr> | 10=<\/td> | 1001-1200<\/td> | 1001-1200<\/td> | University of the Free State<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n | Universities in the top 150 in International Research Network<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The rankings also showed that South African universities dropped in their Employer Reputation indicator, based on surveys from over 100,000 employers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Following historical success, South Africa has seven universities within the top 250 for Employment Outcomes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n QS World Rankings noted increased competition in the area, which measures whether a degree from a specific institution can ensure high employability for graduates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n All universities in South Africa saw a drop, except the University of the Free State, which maintains its position from last year in this area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite South Africa dominating the Sub-Saharan African region in the latest QS rankings, Ben Sowter, QS Senior Vice President, said that improvements are still needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “With only three of the 11 institutions in the country improving their rankings, universities need to ensure they keep up with improvements in higher education elsewhere in the world,” said Sowter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cEmployability is a key area where institutions must work to improve, with global peers surging ahead of South African universities.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n South African universities are the best in the world when it comes to international networks, even if local tertiary education faces serveal challenges. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":828313,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[10487,8389,7091,8393,5453,4719],"class_list":["post-828298","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-qs-world-university-ranking","tag-university-of-cape-town","tag-university-of-johannesburg","tag-university-of-pretoria","tag-university-of-the-free-state","tag-university-of-witwatersrand"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828298","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=828298"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828298\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":828631,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/828298\/revisions\/828631"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/828313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=828298"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=828298"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=828298"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |
|---|