The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy has published its 2025 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), highlighting the top 1 000 universities in the world, including South Africa’s best.
As reported by BusinessTech, eight South African institutions made the cut, though their overall performance slipped compared to last year.
And although no local universities broke into the global top 100, three secured places within the top 500.
South Africa’s top three performers
The ARWU is one of the most influential global university rankings, heavily weighted toward research strength and academic recognition. Its methodology is based on six key indicators:
- Alumni winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10%)
- Staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20%)
- Highly cited researchers across 21 subject categories (20%)
- Publications in Nature and Science (20%)
- Papers indexed in major citation indexes (20%)
- Per capita academic performance (10%)
The University of Cape Town (UCT), ranked in the 201–300 range, maintains its position as the country’s top university.
This year, however, it shares the spot with the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits), which moved up from the 301–400 range to join UCT in the same tier.
Stellenbosch University, placed in the 401–500 range, holding steady compared to 2024.
The eight South African institutions in the top 1 000 were as follows:
| 2024 Range |
2025 Range |
University | 2023 Local # |
2024 Local # |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 201-300 | 201-300 | University of Cape Town | 1 | 1-2 |
| 301-400 | 201-300 | University of Witwatersrand | 2 | 1-2 |
| 401-500 | 401-500 | Stellenbosch University | 3-4 | 3 |
| 401-500 | 501-600 | University of Johannesburg | 3-4 | 4-5 |
| 501-600 | 501-600 | University of KwaZulu-Natal | 5-6 | 4-5 |
| 501-600 | 601-700 | University of Pretoria | 5-6 | 6 |
| 601-700 | 701-800 | North-West University | 7 | 7 |
| 901-1000 | 801-900 | University of South Africa | 8 | 8 |
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