University of Johannesburg on course to challenge global elite by 2030

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University rankings can be misconstrued to affirm the status quo, with the leading institutions remaining steadfast on top of the ranking table.

However, a new report from the higher education strategy consulting firm Firetail identifies a “Class of 2030”, a new generation of “challenger” universities set to make their influence felt globally in the next 15 years. The University of Johannesburg (UJ) is among the 364 pioneering institutions identified as potential outliers.

The report was compiled by examining universities ranked between 500th and 1,500th place on the esteemed University Ranking by Academic Performance (URAP) system, specifically looking at how the institutions consistently improved their rankings between 2010-11 and 2015-16.

Named as one of the “upstream fighters” due to being located in a weak higher education ecosystem, UJ has seen its strategy to increase its global excellence and academic robustness pay off, with the university climbing 507 places from 2010-11 to 2015-16 in the URAP ranking.

The URAP ranking system ranks the top 2,000 higher education institutions globally on academic performance and excellence in research, focusing on research output, citations, impact and international collaboration.

UJ has progressively ascended the URAP ranking since 2010 when it was ranked 1,183rd compared with its current global ranking of 676th, and sixth in South Africa. This is impressive for a young institution only established in 2005 that does not have a medical school. It places UJ ahead of much older, research-intensive universities locally and internationally.

Earlier this year, the university was also noted by QS University Rankings: Brics as one of three South African higher education institutions that have moved up the rankings in 2016. The rankings feature the top 250 universities in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.

Ranked 63rd, four positions higher than in 2015, UJ has improved its overall score. It has also maintained its ranking at fifth in South Africa. Significantly, an enlarged QS survey database, high levels of competition and an increased pool of Brics universities assessed are the factors that account for most of the top South African universities dropping to lower positions. The ranking is based on eight performance indicators, reflecting global reputation, internationalisation, academic staff levels, and research production and impact.

In terms of individual criteria, UJ received favourable ratings for its proportion of international faculty and for its employer reputation and international students. These two indicators highlight the international standard of UJ’s teaching and learning as well as its outstanding reputation among academics and the employers of its graduates alike.

It also achieved a high ranking for its academic reputation and for the quality of its research as measured by the number of citations per research paper.

The latest URAP and QS rankings confirm UJ’s evolution into a pan-African epicentre of critical intellectual enquiry and scholarship.

Read more about the University of Johannesburg’s #UJBeTheSolution initiative.

This content was paid for by the University of Johannesburg. It does not involve Times Media journalists.