Three South African universities listed among world's top 500

Three South African universities have been ranked among the world's top 500 higher education institutions in the 2026 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The University of Cape Town was ranked the country's top university, placed in the 201-300 range of the latest ranking.

The university's performance was driven largely by its strong output of published and highly cited research, particularly in scientific fields.

The University of the Witwatersrand, in Johannesburg, ranked second nationally in the 301-400 range, while Stellenbosch University was placed in the 401-500 range.

Several other South African universities were also included among the world's top 1,000 institutions.

The ARWU, a global indicator of university performance published annually by China-based ShanghaiRanking Consultancy, uses six objective indicators, including Nobel Prize and Fields Medal winners among alumni and staff, highly cited researchers, papers published in the journals Nature and Science, publications indexed in major citation databases, and per capita academic performance.

The ranking covers more than 2,500 universities, with the top 1,000 published.

Harvard University retained the world's top position, followed by Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

U.S. universities dominated the top 100, with 37 institutions, while China had 16, led by Tsinghua University, ranked 18th in the world.

ARWU was first published in 2003 by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and has been published by ShanghaiRanking Consultancy since 2009.