The University of Cape Town (UCT) holds on to its position as the number one university in Africa, climbing 23 places to rank 160th globally, in this year’s World University Rankings published by Times Higher Education (THE).

According to five major international university rankings, this year, UCT is still the best in Africa.

Vice-Chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng said UCT is proud of its academics and the wider UCT community for their work, which has led to this year’s result.

“UCT competes globally with institutions that have considerably more resources than we do, which makes this result all the more remarkable. As a university in the Global South, we are particularly pleased to retain our standing internationally while at the same time prioritising and serving the critical needs of the Global South and the people living here – priorities which are not usually recognised in global rankings,” she said.

This year, THE World University Rankings assessed 1 799 institutions across 13 performance indicators in areas of citations, research, teaching, international outlook and industry income.

UCT ranked 172nd, globally, in citations, it's strongest performance.