The North-West University (NWU) has added another top placement to its impressive show in international rankings. The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy ranks the NWU in the category for the top 5 to 7 South African universities in its 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The placing in the 5 to 7 category is an improvement from being ranked seventh in the country last year.

ARWU places the NWU in the 501 to 600 ranking category internationally – a considerable achievement, as it was ranked in the 601 to 700 category in 2022.

The ShanghaiRanking Consultancy published their list on 15 August.

This year, the NWU has continued to show improvement in major rankings. The latest Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings, published on 27 June, placed the NWU among the top seven South African universities in their Top Global Universities rankings for 2024 – moving up from eighth position locally. In this ranking the NWU showed significant improvement in its international placement, moving into the 801 to 850 ranking category from last year’s 1 001 to 1 200 placement.

QS placed the NWU tenth in Africa – five positions higher than last year’s 15th place.

The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) placed the NWU in the top 4,4% of global universities in their 2023 edition of the Global 2000 list. It is an improvement from being in the top 4,5% in this ranking for 2022/2023. The latest ranking was published on 15 May.

Prof Bismark Tyobeka, principal and vice-chancellor of the NWU, reiterates that rankings recognise the essential work that the university is doing. He commends staff, students and other stakeholders for their continued support in taking the university forward. For more information about the latest ShanghaiRanking list, visit ShanghaiRanking-Universities. To learn more about he NWU’s performance in various rankings, visit: Rankings | NWU | North-West University.

More about the ARWU rankings

ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities. These are: the number of alumni who 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 Social Sciences Citation Index (20%); and the per capita academic performance of an institution (10%).

They scrutinise more than 2 500 international universities annually and publish the best 1 000.