Sunday, August 16, 2015

Research Ranking of African Universities

I suppose it should no longer be surprising that university heads flock to Johannesburg for the unveiling of an "experimental" research ranking of 30 African universities that put the University of Port Harcourt in 6th place, did not include Cairo University, the University of Ibadan, Ahmadu Bello University or the University of Nigeria Nsukka, placed Makerere above Stellenbosch and Universite Cadi Ayyad above the University of Pretoria.

It is still a bit odd that African universities seem to have  ignored a reasonable and sensible research ranking from the Journals Consortium that I found while reading an article by Gerald Ouma in the Mail and Guardian Africa, which, by the way, had an advertisement about Universite Cadi Ayyad being number ten in the THE African ranking.

The Journals Consortium ranking is based on publications, citations and web visibility and altogether 1,447 institutions are ranked. The methodology, which is a bit thin, is here.

Here are the top ten.
1.   University of Cape Town
2.   Cairo University
3.   University of Pretoria
4.   University of Nairobi
5.   University of South Africa
6.   University of the Witwatersrand
7.   Stellenbosch University
8.   University of Ibadan
9.   University of Kwazulu-Natal
10. Ain Shams University

The University of Port Harcourt is 36th and Universite Cadi Ayyad is 89th.

I am pleased to note that two of my former employers are in the rankings, University of Maiduguri in 66th place and Umar ibn Ibrahim El-Kanemi College of Education, Science and Technology (formerly Borno College of Basic Studies) in 988th.



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