The University of the Witwatersrand is soaring on a world ranking of the best tertiary institutions in the world‚ while the University of Cape Town is holding steady. Wits has climbed from an institutional ranking of 401-500 in 2003‚ to 201-300 this year‚ while UCT has held onto the 201-300 range in the same time. Wits’ place on the leaderboard is 203rd. Wits is also ranked in the Top 200 in the world in the field of Social Sciences.In total‚ four South African institutions have made the top 500 in the latest Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)‚ also known as the Shanghai rankings. Stellenbosch University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal are ranked 401-500.Harvard University remains the number one in the world for the 14th year‚ followed by Stanford. Berkeley rises one place to 3rd spot. Cambridge is now fourth. Oxford soars from 10th place to 7th. ETH Zurich (19th) takes first place in Continental Europe‚ and University of Copenhagen (31st) in Denmark overtakes Pierre & Marie Curie (39th) in France as the second best university in this area. In Asia‚ University of Tokyo is back to Top 20 but Kyoto University drops from 26th to 32nd. University of Melbourne (40th) tops other universities in Oceania.“At Wits‚ our research output has increased substantially in the last few years‚ noting though that this achievement is a culmination of work done over many years by our researchers. We are truly appreciative of this recognition‚ and we are particularly appreciative of our researchers‚ scientists‚ students and alumni to whom these accolades really belong‚” said Professor Zeblon Vilakazi‚ Deputy Vice-Chancellor: Research at Wits.Vilakazi commended other SA universities that have also been ranked among the top 500 universities in the world‚ saying it clearly demonstrates the strength of the South African higher education system.“Our research output as a country is at one of its highest levels to date‚ and this bears testament to the high quality of research emanating from South Africa‚” he said.The Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) started in 2003. ARWU adopts six objective indicators to rank world universities‚ including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals‚ the number of Highly Cited Researchers‚ the number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science‚ the number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index‚ and per capita performance. More than 1‚200 universities are ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 universities are published...