{"id":835311,"date":"2025-08-18T14:40:28","date_gmt":"2025-08-18T12:40:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=835311"},"modified":"2025-08-19T13:23:23","modified_gmt":"2025-08-19T11:23:23","slug":"only-three-south-african-universities-rank-among-the-top-500-in-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/835311\/only-three-south-african-universities-rank-among-the-top-500-in-the-world\/","title":{"rendered":"Only three South African universities rank among the top 500 in the world"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy has published its 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), highlighting the top 1,000 universities in the world\u2014including eight from South Africa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ARWU does not reveal the total score for universities outside of the top 100, with those listed outside of this only being placed within a range alphabetically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While none of South Africa\u2019s universities ranked in the top 100, three local institutions managed to crack into the top 500 in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, this is one fewer than in 2024, with the University of Johannesburg dropping into a lower ranking range this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of Cape Town (UCT), which regularly ranks as the top university in the country, is now sharing the limelight with regular number two, Wits University, in the 201-300 ranking range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Stellenbosch University ranks third in the 401-500 range, rounding out the South African Universities in the top 500 globally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

While the University of Johannesburg improved its standing in 2024, having been ranked in the 501-600 range in 2023, it couldn\u2019t hold the position in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It now ranks within the 501-600 range alongside the University of Pretoria. The University of KwaZulu-Natal also dropped, falling from the 501-600 range into the 601-700 range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The University of the North-West also dropped in the rankings again, falling from the 501-600 range to the 601-700 range in 2024 and to the 701-800 range in 2025.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Closing up the rankings is Unisa, which improved its standing from the 901-1000 range to the 801-900 range.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
2024
Range<\/th>		2025
Range<\/th>		University<\/th>2024
Local #<\/th>		2025
Local #<\/th><\/tr><\/thead>
201-300<\/td>201-300<\/td>University of Cape Town<\/td>1<\/td>1-2<\/td><\/tr>
301-400<\/td>201-300<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>University of Witwatersrand<\/td>2<\/td>1-2<\/td><\/tr>
401-500<\/td>401-500<\/td>Stellenbosch University<\/td>3-4<\/td>3<\/td><\/tr>
401-500<\/td>501-600<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>University of Johannesburg<\/td>3-4<\/td>4-5<\/td><\/tr>
501-600<\/td>501-600<\/td>University of KwaZulu Natal<\/td>5-6<\/td>4-5<\/td><\/tr>
501-600<\/td>601-700<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>University of Pretoria<\/td>5-6<\/td>6<\/td><\/tr>
601-700<\/td>701-800<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>North-West University<\/td>7<\/td>7<\/td><\/tr>
901-1000<\/td>801-900<\/strong><\/mark><\/td>University of South Africa<\/td>8<\/td>8<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Shanghai ranking is just one of several global rankings that are published each year, with each focusing on different aspects of tertiary education.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Most rankings, however, put strong focus on research and citations, which is seen as proxy for the quality of academic work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    \n
  • The number of alumni who win Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The number of staff who win Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The number of highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories (20%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The number of papers published in Nature<\/em> and Science<\/em> (20%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index-expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index (20%)<\/li>\n\n\n\n
  • The per capita academic performance of an institution (10%)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n

    More than 2,500 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year, and the best 1,000 are published.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Harvard University tops the ranking list for the 23rd year, followed by Stanford and MIT. Other Top 10 universities are Cambridge (4th), Berkeley (5th), Oxford (6th), Princeton (7th), Columbia (8th), Caltech (9th), and Chicago (10th).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Chinese universities continue to dominate the rankings, with 244 institutes in the top 1,000, and 113 in the top 500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    However, US universities are features in the top 100 more than any other country, with 37 featuring, versus 15 from China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    The group noted that there were 25 new entrants appearing on the top 500 list in 2025, and 39 universities entering the top 1,000 for the first time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy has published its 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities, highlighting the top 1,000 universities in the world\u2014including eight from South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":775415,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[13285,7140,7138,7137,7141],"class_list":["post-835311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-shanghairanking-consultancy","tag-stellenbosch","tag-uct","tag-university","tag-wits"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835311","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=835311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":835424,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/835311\/revisions\/835424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/775415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=835311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=835311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=835311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}