Unisa improves international standing in 2025 Webometrics ranking

In its first edition of 2025, the Webometrics Ranking Web of Universities shows that Unisa rose from the 797^th (2024) to the 732^nd  (2025) place internationally, while the institution retained a solid seventh position among the 124 South African institutions of higher learning (including also colleges and academies, both private and public) ranked by Webometrics.

The ranking is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, which is part of the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain. CSIC is attached to the Spanish Ministry of Education, and its main objective is to promote scientific research to improve the welfare of citizens.

Since 2004, the ranking has been published twice a year, covering more than 31 000 higher education institutions worldwide.

The research group says that the ranking is exclusively based on “link analysis for quality evaluation, as it is a far more powerful tool than citation analysis or global surveys. In the first case, bibliometrics only counts formal recognition between peers, while links not only includes bibliographic citations but also third parties’ involvement with university activities.”

The group focused on three main benchmarks for the first edition of its 2025 ranking:

• Visibility or impact of web content: 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%). 

Appointed recently for a second term, Unisa Principal and Vice-Chancellor, Professor Puleng LenkaBula, has stated unequivocally that Unisa’s mission is to reclaim its place at the top tier of higher education institutions. Under her leadership the university is rapidly evolving and acknowledged globally as a leading university that not only meets but exceeds international standards of excellence in education, research, innovation and sustainability.

* By Philip van der Merwe, Editor, Department of Institutional Advancement