UFH ranked amongst world’s top universities for 2023 by Times Higher Education
Alice, 12 October 2022 -- The University of Fort Hare today announced it has received a prestigious Times Higher Education global ranking.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings has published its annual report of the world’s top universities for 2023, listing 15 South African institutions among them.
This is the first time that the University of Fort Hare has been ranked by one of the world’s most respected university ranking bodies.
This year, only two Eastern Cape universities appeared on the Times Higher Education World University Rankings – the University of Fort Hare and Rhodes University.
See: These are the 15 best universities in South Africa
Since its inception in 2004, the Times Higher Education has been assessing university performance to understand the success of higher education institutions around the world, providing trusted performance data on universities for academics, government and industry.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings is the only global performance table that judges research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook, and 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators are used.
The performance indicators are grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment); research (volume, income and reputation); citations (research influence); international outlook (staff, students and research); and industry income (knowledge transfer).
“We are excited by this achievement, and it marks an important moment in the first year of our renewal programme,” said Professor Sakhela Buhlungu, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the University of Fort Hare.
The Vice-Chancellor said the University’s strategic plan was well on track and that the University was reclaiming ground. “Applications to UFH for the 2023 academic year also increased at an unprecedented rate”.
Earlier this year, UFH outranked several Eastern Cape universities based on the Scimago Institutions (SI) Rankings which rank various international academic and research-related institutions in terms of research, innovation and societal impact to finally produce a composite score.
In the overall ranking for South African higher education institutions – which considers research, societal impact and innovation – UFH was clustered in the second quartile. The University appeared in the 12th position, followed by Nelson Mandela University in the 15th position and Walter Sisulu University in the 19th position out of the 23 South African higher education institutions ranked. Rhodes University was ranked in the 11th position and secured first place out of all the Eastern Cape universities.