The University of Cape Town has shot up the Times Higher Education (THE) global university ranking for 2026, placing it as the only local institution among the top 200 in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The THE World University Rankings have a key focus on research-intensive universities across all core indicators.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The ranking looks at 18 performance indicators to provide a comprehensive and balanced comparison between universities. These indicators are grouped into five areas:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For the 2026 ranking, 13 South African universities made the cut, down from 14 in the 2025 edition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UCT ranked 164th overall, maintaining its top position in South Africa and Africa. It ranked 180th in 2025 and 167th in 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
All universities outside the top 300 are not ranked individually but rather fall into ranges. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For local universities that remained in the same range, it is difficult to tell whether they slipped or improved their positioning in the overall ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, at least two universities improved their standing by moving up the rankings into a higher range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This includes the University of Johannesburg, which now ranks in the top 400, and the University of Pretoria, which ranks in the top 600.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
One university, the Durbant University of Technology, dropped into a lower ranking range, falling out of the top 1500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The University of Fort Hare and the University of Venda, which ranked outside of the top 1500 in 2025, dropped off the 2026 ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Meanwhile, the Nelson Mandela Bay University joined the ranking, falling within the 1201-1500 range.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The rankings of South Africa’s universities can be found below: <\/p>\n\n\n\n Globally, the University of Oxford took the top spot for a record-breaking tenth consecutive year, beating Harvard University, which was the previous record of eight consecutive years at the number one spot from 2004 to 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Harvard has since dropped down the rankings to be ranked fifth, after it ranked third in last year’s ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The new number two is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has held the position for another year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The THE noted a strong rise in Asian universities over the years, but marked a degree of stagnation in the 2026 ranking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n While Asian institutions still showed strong results across the board, some previous fast risers stalled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Tsinghua University stuck at 12th place for the third year in a row, Peking University moved up just one place (13th for the second consecutive year), and the National University of Singapore (NUS) also stayed last year\u2019s 17th position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The number of Chinese universities in the top 200 is also steady, at 13 universities for the third year in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “This stability is in marked contrast to the trajectory of Asia\u2019s top universities in the decade leading up to the 2024 edition of the rankings, during which time Tsinghua moved up 35 places, Peking up 28 places, and NUS seven places,” the group noted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year marks the first time since the 2012 edition that none of the three institutions has improved its rank.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 13 South African universities made it onto the Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2026, with three climbing, and one cracking the top 200.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":657679,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[7143,10383],"class_list":["post-839479","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-times-higher-education","tag-university-ranking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839479","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=839479"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839479\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839493,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839479\/revisions\/839493"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/657679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839479"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839479"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839479"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}University <\/strong><\/td> 2024<\/strong><\/td> 2025<\/strong><\/td> 2026<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> University of Cape Town<\/td> 167<\/td> 180<\/td> 164<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr> Stellenbosch University<\/td> 301\u2013350<\/td> 301-350<\/td> 301-350<\/td><\/tr> University of the Witwatersrand<\/td> 301\u2013350<\/td> 301-350<\/td> 301-350<\/td><\/tr> University of Johannesburg<\/td> 401\u2013500<\/td> 401-500<\/td> 351-400<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr> University of KwaZulu-Natal <\/td> 501\u2013600<\/td> 501-600<\/td> 501-600<\/td><\/tr> University of Pretoria <\/td> 501\u2013600<\/td> 601-800<\/td> 501-600<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr> University of the Western Cape<\/td> 601-800<\/td> 601-800<\/td> 601-800<\/td><\/tr> North-West University<\/td> 601-800<\/td> 801-1000<\/td> 801-1000<\/td><\/tr> University of the Free State<\/td> 801-1000<\/td> 1001-1200<\/td> 1001-1200<\/td><\/tr> Nelson Mandela Univertsity<\/td> –<\/td> –<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td><\/tr> Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University<\/td> –<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td><\/tr> University of South Africa<\/td> 1001-1200<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td><\/tr> Durban University of Technology<\/td> 1001-1200<\/td> 1201-1500<\/td> 1501+<\/strong><\/mark><\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n Global performance<\/h2>\n\n\n\n