The University of Cape Town (UCT) ranked 147th in the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings for 2027, placing it above several notable global institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The THE University Ranking for 2027 ranks thousands of tertiary institutions based on the quality of teaching, research quality and innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The list tracks several key metrics to determine an overall score out of 100 for each university, before ranking them accordingly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Each institution’s score is determined by five metrics: <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In total, 16 South African tertiary institutions made the list, with three making their debut and several moving up in the rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Walter Sisulu University, Tshwane University of Technology and the University of Venda joined the ranking for the first time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The highest-ranked South African university was UCT, which ranked 147th, improving from 164th the previous year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This placed UCT above several academic stalwarts, such as the University of Geneva in Switzerland and Texas A&M, one of the largest universities in the United States.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 147th placement also saw UCT tie with four universities from Japan, America, and Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
UCT achieved an overall score of 62.4, with particularly high results in the research quality and industry indexes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second-place South African university was the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which ranked in the 301-325 category.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the World University Ranking assigns individual rankings to the top 300 institutions, those below this threshold are placed in broader categories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In last year’s rankings, Wits was tied with Stellenbosch University (Stellies) in the 301-350 category, but the Johannesburg-based institution pulled ahead in the latest list.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Below is the list of South African universities ranked in Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the latest university rankings, several placement categories were adjusted. Therefore, positions and changes in the list are based on each institution’s highest theoretical position.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
University name<\/strong><\/td>| 2027 Global ranking<\/strong><\/td> | 2026 Global ranking<\/strong><\/td> | Change<\/strong><\/td><\/tr> | University of Cape Town<\/td> | 147<\/td> | 164<\/td> | \u2191<\/td><\/tr> | University of the Witwatersrand<\/td> | 301\u2013325<\/td> | 301\u2013350<\/td> | =<\/td><\/tr> | University of Stellenbosch<\/td> | 326\u2013350<\/td> | 301\u2013350<\/td> | \u2193<\/td><\/tr> | University of Johannesburg<\/td> | 351\u2013375<\/td> | 351\u2013400<\/td> | =<\/td><\/tr> | University of Pretoria<\/td> | 451\u2013500<\/td> | 501\u2013600<\/td> | \u2191<\/td><\/tr> | University of KwaZulu-Natal<\/td> | 501\u2013550<\/td> | 501\u2013600<\/td> | =<\/td><\/tr> | University of the Western Cape<\/td> | 701\u2013800<\/td> | 601\u2013800<\/td> | \u2193<\/td><\/tr> | North-West University<\/td> | 801\u20131,000<\/td> | 801\u20131,000<\/td> | =<\/td><\/tr> | Durban University of Technology<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,400<\/td> | 1,501+<\/td> | \u2191<\/td><\/tr> | University of South Africa<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,400<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,500<\/td> | =<\/td><\/tr> | University of the Free State<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,400<\/td> | 1,001\u20131,200<\/td> | \u2193<\/td><\/tr> | Nelson Mandela University<\/td> | 1,401\u20131,600<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,500<\/td> | \u2193<\/td><\/tr> | Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University<\/td> | 1,401\u20131,600<\/td> | 1,201\u20131,500<\/td> | \u2193<\/td><\/tr> | Walter Sisulu University<\/td> | 1,801\u20132,000<\/td> | \u2013<\/td> | \u2013<\/td><\/tr> | Tshwane University of Technology<\/td> | 1,801\u20132,000<\/td> | \u2013<\/td> | \u2013<\/td><\/tr> | University of Venda<\/td> | 1,801\u20132,000<\/td> | \u2013<\/td> | \u2013<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/div> | The global rankings<\/h2>\n\n\n\nThe World University Rankings included 2,297 institutions across 118 countries, but only two countries were represented in the top 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The UK had three institutions in the top 10, with the country’s famed Oxford University placing first for the 11th year in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The world-renowned university had an overall score of 97.9, and scored a perfect 100 in the research environment index.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The United Kingdom also had Cambridge University and Imperial College London feature in the top 10.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The rest of the top ten was taken up by American universities, including Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Princeton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outside the top ten, the US continued to have many high-ranking universities, with other countries such as China, Singapore, and Australia also featuring in the top 50.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Times Higher Education also noted that this year’s list featured three Asian universities in the top 15 for the first time in its history.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" UCT has maintained its position as the best university in South Africa\u2014but three more have joined the rankings. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":131,"featured_media":867601,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"posted","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"2105236974713946395","_sma_facebook_post_id":"191437357620492_2221613195325746","_sma_instagram_post_id":"18140734753611503","_sma_x_attempts":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26526],"tags":[10008,6896,7138,7141,26663],"class_list":["post-877548","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-oxford","tag-stellenbosch-university","tag-uct","tag-wits","tag-world-university-rankings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877548","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\/131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=877548"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877548\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":877609,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877548\/revisions\/877609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/867601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=877548"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=877548"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=877548"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}} |