UCT has held its position at ninth in the 2019 Times Higher Education (THE) Emerging Economies University Rankings and is the top university in Africa. South Africa has nine universities in the Emerging Economies Rankings, up from eight last year, and retains seven in the top 200.

For the Emerging Economies Rankings, THE uses the same 13 performance indicators as for their World University Rankings to judge a university’s strengths across teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. However, the weightings are recalibrated to better reflect the characteristics and priorities of universities in emerging economies. More weighting is given to a university’s industry links and international outlook, for example.
UCT’s scores in the teaching and research categories increased, as did its reputation survey scores, which are the most prominent within these categories. This offers a good indicator of the institution’s positive international reputation among leading academics. The notably improved research score confirms UCT as a research-intensive institution producing cutting-edge outputs.

UCT Acting Deputy Vice Chancellor for Research & Internationalisation, Professor Kevin Naidoo says: ” UCT welcomes the 2019 Times Higher Education Emerging Economies University Rankings. We owe this recognition of our world-class research outputs to our teams of staff and students led by talented academics that work meticulously to make meaningful discoveries along the breadth and depth of the landscape of knowledge. We take pride in our staff, that through teaching and learning grow cohorts of young talent into researchers that can take a lead in South Africa and the continent’s knowledge economy”.
Scores for the citations and international outlook categories increased too, pointing to the continued impact and influence of UCT’s research and affirming the university as a destination of choice for international students.

Despite a slight drop in the industry income category, which reflects the university’s research impact and contribution to industry, this remains the UCT’s highest score across the categories.

China continues to dominate this ranking with seven universities in the top 10. The ranking includes 442 universities from 43 countries.