The University of Port Harcourt has been ranked the sixth in Africa and the first in Nigeria by Times Higher Education (THE), a United Kingdom-based authoritative source for information about higher education.
Placed behind four South African universities and one Ugandan university, UniPort made the cut following the number of papers presented over a period of time.
In this chart by world’s most trusted rankings provider, THE, it reveals the first glimpse of future Africa University Rankings.
“The university rankings provider has revealed the top 15 universities in the region, based solely on their scores for research influence – in other words, how much African universities’ research papers are referred to and cited by other academics across the globe,” THE said in a statement.
The research institute noted that: “To be included in this future-gazing table, an institution must have published a minimum of 500 research papers in the five year period assessed with at least 50 papers per year,” it said.
University of Port Harcourt was the only Nigerian university ranked in the top 15. The full table, which contains the top 30 universities in Africa, will be revealed at the inaugural Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit, which is billed to take place on 30th and 31st July at the University of Johannesburg.
“As the first major public consultation on the future THE Africa University Rankings, academic leaders and opinion formers will discuss plans for a full and comprehensive ranking for the region.
“This new ranking will be based on Times Higher Education’s respected World University Rankings, but shaped following this initial meeting by bespoke metrics designed to meet the region’s specific challenges.
“Times Higher Education is therefore calling for opinion formers from across the region to attend the Summit, founded with University of Johannesburg, to take part in the debate and help shape the future of university rankings in Africa.
“To attend the Summit, delegates should register at: www.theworldsummitseries.com/aus2015
The ‘snapshot’ table, based on just one of THE’s five respected World University Rankings criteria – research influence, gives a good indication of what a full university ranking might look like for Africa and sees two South African institutions – the University of Cape Town and the University of Witwatersrand – take first and second place respectively.
