As the North-West University (NWU) embraces its new strategy, Taking the NWU forward: 2024 and beyond, another global ranking has reaffirmed the university’s place among the top seven in South Africa.
This exciting new chapter brought on by the new strategy is marked by significant developments, including the establishment and proposed establishment of three future-fit academic schools: the Desmond Tutu School of Medicine, the School of Mines and Mining Engineering, and the School of Veterinary Sciences. The university’s strategy places strong emphasis on internationalisation, partnerships and societal impact.
The latest Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), released by the ShanghaiRanking Consultancy on 15 August, confirms the NWU’s continued strong performance. In the 2025 edition, the NWU is ranked in the 701 to 800 category globally, an impressive achievement given that only the top 1 000 out of more than 2 500 ranked universities are published annually.
A tradition of excellence
The NWU is positioning itself as a globally engaged, innovative institution committed to academic excellence and relevance. Its strategy for 2024 and beyond is built on four key strategic priorities: results-orientated leadership; systems thinking and policy fluency; private-public value co-creation; and digital and green economy enablement.
International rankings continue to reflect the NWU’s strong standing. Earlier this year, the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings placed the NWU among the top eight universities in South Africa and in the top 16 in Africa. Published in June, the QS rankings placed four NWU subject groups in the top 850 globally in the World University Rankings by Subject. These are agriculture, environmental sciences, physics and medicine. Notably, one subject group ranked in the 301–350 category.
In addition, the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) listed the NWU in the top 4,1% of universities globally in its 2025 Global 2000 rankings, which were also released in June.
More about the ARWU rankings
The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy says the ARWU ranking has been recognised as the precursor of global university rankings and it is the most trustworthy one.
ARWU takes six objective indicators into consideration when ranking universities. These are:
• The number of alumni to win Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (10%)
• The number of staff who win Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (20%)
• The number of highly cited researchers in 21 broad subject categories (20%)
• The number of papers published in Nature and Science (20%)
• The number of papers indexed in the Science Citation Index-Expanded and the Social Sciences Citation Index (20%)
• The per capita academic performance of an institution (10%)
To read more about this year’s ARWU rankings, visit: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2025 , or for more about the NWU’s performance in the various rankings, visit: https://www.nwu.ac.za/rankings.
