Wits University ranked best in Africa for the year 2016

Wits University’s research programs contribute to high ranking

South Africa’s University of the Witwatersrand (Wits University) has been named the top educational institution in Africa in the 2016 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The institution’s increasing research output has contributed greatly to the new ranking.

Four other South African institutions including the University of Cape Town, Stellenbosch University and the University of KwaZulu-Natal also rank highly.
Mohammed Moola, the Head of the university’s Strategic Partnerships Office said, “We are quite happy that we are regarded as the best university in Africa, but we also say that you have got to take this in the context in which it comes because various rankings use different criteria for their ranking purposes.”

The ARWU has also ranked Wits in the Top 200 in the world in the field of Social Sciences.

Zeblon Vilakazi, the Deputy Vice-Chancellor in charge of Research at the university added, “at Wits, our research output has increases 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.”

Wits University was one of the founding institutions of the African Research Universities Alliance. The institution is highly, research-intensive and is well known for its outstanding performance in subatomic physics and other fields of fundamental science in addition to the major contributions to healthcare.

Notable alumni of the institution include South Africa’s first democratically elected president Nelson Mandela; Nadine Gordimer, who won the 1991 Nobel Prize in Literature and Aaron Klug, who won the 1982 Nobel Prize in Chemistry.