The North-West University (NWU) has continued to improve its ranking and shines among the top global universities. This is evident in recent rankings by both the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) and the Times Higher Education (THE) Young University Rankings.
The latest Global 2000 list, which is published by the CWUR, places the NWU among the top 4,2% of the world’s best universities. This outstanding achievement was published on 13 May on the cwur.org website. The NWU was ranked according to academic performance among 20 966 universities worldwide.
It is not the first time that the university has excelled in these rankings, as it has continued to improve its showing in this list. In the 2024 edition of the Global 2000 list, the NWU has shown that its continued striving towards excellence is paying off, outperforming its impressive showings of last year ─ the NWU was then ranked among the top 4,4% – as well as in 2022, when the NWU was ranked in the top 4,5%.
The ranking is also an improvement on last year’s overall score of 71,1 to 71,3. The NWU is now ranked 869th in the world. This means that the NWU has climbed 18 places up the ranking ladder since being placed 887th last year. It is ranked 825th for research and 1 682th for employability. The NWU retained its tenth position in Africa and is still seventh (the same as last year) in South Africa.
According to Dr Nadim Mahassen, president of the CWUR, they publish the largest academic rankings of global universities. The rankings are set apart from others in that they use objective indicators for their four pillars: education; employability; faculty; and research. They do not rely on surveys and university data submissions.
The CWUR also places equal emphasis on student- and faculty-related indicators and employed 62 million outcome-based data points for this year’s rankings.
The CWUR is a leading consulting organisation that provides policy advice, strategic insights and consulting services to governments and universities to improve educational and research outcomes.
Also shining among young universities
It is not only the CWUR that recognises the NWU’s excellence. The latest Times Higher Education (THE) Young University Rankings placed the NWU 183th out of 673 universities on their list of the world’s best universities that are 50 years old or younger. Only universities that fall in this specific age category are considered for these rankings. The NWU celebrates its 20th year of existence this year and therefore qualified for these specific rankings. The THE also publishes other rankings that include the World University Rankings.
The THE Young University Rankings uses 13 calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons. These rankings include institutions that were founded between 1973 and the present.
The THE rankings group the performance indicators into five areas: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research and influence); international outlook (staff, students and research); and industry income (knowledge transfer). Follow the links for more information on the 2024 CWUR rankings (http://cwur.org/2024.php), and the THE Young University Rankings (https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/young-university-rankings), or visit https://www.nwu.ac.za/rankings for more information about the NWU’s performance in the various rankings.
