This latest ranking was done by the Center for World University Rankings (CWUR), which published their list of leading universities for 2020 to 2021, on 8 June.

Closer to home, we feature in the top seven of South African universities, with our research performance ranked at 877. This gives us an overall score of 70,8, which is a remarkable achievement.

Evaluating excellence

The CWUR annually publishes the largest academic ranking of global universities. Their ranking system is quite unique, as they place equal emphasis on the learning environment and on research.

The four key pillars underlying their ranking methodology are the quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculties and research performance.

Not the first time

The NWU was also highly ranked by Times Higher Education (THE). It earned itself a place among the top five South African universities in the THE’s Emerging Economies University Ranking that was released in February.

This followed after we had  been placed in the top five and top seven of local universities in the THE’s World University Rankings for law studies and business economics respectively, in November last year.