QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, has today released the eighteenth edition of the world’s most-consulted international university rankings. The 2022 edition of the QS World University Rankings [1] sees a record number of African universities - thirty-one - enter the published tables.
The continental leader remains, by some distance, University of Cape Town. It ranks 226th, falling for a second consecutive year. However, its closest continental competitor is outside the top 400: University of the Witwatersrand, which places 424th (down 21 places year-on-year).
Also placing among the top 500 are:
* University of Johannesburg (434th, up five places year-on-year)
* The American University in Cairo (445th, down 34 places year-on-year)
* Stellenbosch University (482nd, down 26 places).
As in previous years, South Africa remains the continental hegemon. It is home to the continental leader, and four of Africa’s top five institutions. Only Egypt (13) betters its total of nine ranked universities.
Of Africa’s 31 ranked universities:
* Only one (University of Johannesburg) has improved its global rank
over the last year.
* Eleven have declined in rank - all from Egypt and South Africa.
* Ten have remained stable within their rank or band.
* Nine are new participants in the ranking exercise this year.
The highest-ranking new entrant is Tunisia’s Université de Sousse. It is the first Tunisian university to feature in the QS World University Rankings, and places in the 701st-750th band.
Ben Sowter, Director of Research at QS, said: “The latest expansion of the QS World University Rankings has enabled us to shine a light on more African universities than ever before, which will provide an increasing level of scope for students, policymakers, and academic leaders to benchmark the continent’s institutions against peers both regionally and globally. For most of the continent, further improvement is hampered by low scores in our research impact metric: beyond South Africa’s top institutions, no African university ranks among the world’s top 600 for research impact. Beyond this, improving graduate employer recognition is also a strategic priority necessity for African institutions.”
This year, QS will list the world’s top 1300 universities - 145 more than in last year’s edition - which can be found in 97 locations. 6415 institutions were eligible for the survey analysis, and 1705 were assessed for the final table. The results will account for the distribution and performance of 14.7 million academic papers published between 2015 and 2019, and the 96 million citations received by those papers; they also account for the expert opinions of over 130,000 academic faculty and over 75,000 employers.
QS World University Rankings 2022: Global Top-20 2022 2021
Institutiton Name
Location
1
1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
United States
2
5
University of Oxford
United Kingdom
3=
2
Stanford University
United States
3=
7
University of Cambridge
United Kingdom
5
3
Harvard University
United States
6
4
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
United States
7
8
Imperial College London
United Kingdom
8=
6
ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Switzerland
8=
10
UCL (University College London)
United Kingdom
10
9
University of Chicago
United States
11
11
National University of Singapore (NUS)
Singapore
12
13
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
Singapore
13
16
University of Pennsylvania
United States
14=
14
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL)
Switzerland
14=
17
Yale University
United States
16
20
University of Edinburgh
United Kingdom
17
15
Tsinghua University
Mainland China
18
23
Peking University
Mainland China
19
19
Columbia University
United States
20
12
Princeton University
United States
© QS Quacquarelli Symonds 2004-2021 https://www.TopUniversities.com/
[2]. All rights reserved.
Methodology
QS use six indicators to compile the ranking:
* Academic Reputation: based on survey responses from over 130,000 academics.
* Employer Reputation: based on survey responses from over 75,000 employers about the relationship between institution and graduate employability.
* Citations per Faculty: measuring research impact, it divides the total number of citations received by a university’s research papers over a five-year period by the number of faculty at an institution.
* Faculty/Student Ratio: a proxy for teaching capacity. Student numbers are divided by faculty numbers, giving the global student body
some indication of likely class sizes at their selected institution.
* International Faculty Ratio: one of QS’s two measures of internationalization, it measures the proportion of non-domestic faculty at an institution.
* International Student Ratio: the second of QS’s two measures of internationalization, it measures the proportion of non-domestic students at an institution. This, in turn, provides an indication of a university’s ability to attract talent from across the world.
Further methodological information can be found at https://www.topuniversities.com/qs-world-university-rankings/methodology.
[3]
The full rankings can be found at www.TopUniversities.com [4] from Tuesday 8th June, 20:00 GMT.