News & Media
Unisa is reclaiming its place at the top tier of tertiary education in South Africa
Set to reclaim Africa's intellectual future and its place at the top tier of tertiary education institutions in South Africa – and on the continent, Unisa has been ranked seventh in South Africa by Webometrics, Ranking Web of Universities 2023. This news comes shortly after the 2023 Academic Ranking of World Universities ranked Unisa in the top eight best universities in South Africa and the top 1 000 globally.
The 2023 first edition of Webometrics Ranking Web of Universities ranked Unisa at 795th among more than 31 000 universities worldwide, up from 805th in 2022. In the second edition, Unisa is now 781st worldwide, marking a significant upward shift.
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.
The ranking aims to promote web publications. It supports open access initiatives, electronic access to scientific publications and other academic material to improve the welfare of citizens.
This vision aligns with Unisa's − improving the welfare of citizens through engaged scholarship is a commitment that Prof Puleng LenkaBula, Unisa's Principal and Vice-Chancellor, has set for the institution. LenkaBula stresses that for the university to contribute effectively to the academic project, engaged research and innovation remain its fundamental purpose. In addition, Unisa's research continues to contribute to the university's teaching and learning in ways that seek to find African solutions to African problems.
LenkaBula's vision, in juxtaposition with the recent various rankings, which have all shown improvement in the university's performance on the global landscape, proves that the university is positioned to reclaim Unisa’s role as a leader in the higher education landscape in the continent and globally.
Affirming Unisa’s stature as a university of excellence, the Webometrics Ranking Web of Universities focused on three main benchmarks for its 2023 ranking:
Visibility: The number of external networks (subnets) linking to the institution's web pages (weighted at 50%)
Transparency or openness: The number of citations from the top 310 authors, excluding the top 30 outliers based on Google Scholar profiles (10%)
Excellence: The number of papers amongst the top 10% most cited in each one of the 27 disciplines of the full database over the last five years (40%)
Among South African universities, Unisa maintained its position in the top 1000 internationally and seventh overall among the 123 institutions of higher learning in the country (including also colleges and academies, both private and public).
Unisa is set to become a centre of excellence and a lever of optimum participation in the global knowledge arena with impact.
#Unisa150
* By Tshimangadzo Mphaphuli, Acting Editor: Internal Communications, Department of Institutional Advancement
Publish date: 2023/09/15
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