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UCC at it again, best in Ghana, First in West Africa in Times Higher Education Ranking

The University of Cape Coast (UCC), Ghana has been ranked the best university, first in West Africa and 4th in Africa for the 2023 Times Higher Education Rankings.
This was published in the 2023 Times Higher Education annual rankings.


Meanwhile, in the 2022 ranking, the university earned the bragging rights as the best university in Ghana, the best in West Africa, the 4th best university in Africa and the best university globally for research influence.


The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2023 included 1,799 universities across 104 countries and regions, making it the largest and most diverse university ranking to date.


The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the seventh consecutive year. Harvard University remains in second place, but the University of Cambridge jumps from joint fifth last year to joint third.

The US is the most-represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58).

The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

This year’s ranking analysed over 121 million citations across more than 15.5 million research publications and included survey responses from 40,000 scholars globally. Overall, we collected over 680,000 datapoints from more than 2,500 institutions that submitted data.


Most importantly in this year’s ranking, African countries including Zambia, Namibia, Mozambique, Zimbabwe and Mauritius entered for the first time.


The highest new entry is Italy’s Humanitas University, ranked in the 201-250 bracket.
The US was the most-represented country overall, with 177 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (58).


Again the research showed Mainland China now has the fourth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (11, compared with 10 last year), having overtaken Australia, which has dropped to fifth (joint with the Netherlands).


Harvard tops the teaching pillar, while Oxford leads the research pillar. Atop the international pillar is the Macau University of Science and Technology.


Overall, 1,799 universities are ranked. A further 526 universities are listed with “reporter” status, meaning that they provided data but did not meet our eligibility criteria to receive a rank, and agreed to be displayed as a reporter in the final table.


The institute said that the research is known worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts and this year’s league table reveals how the global higher education landscape is shifting.

Writer: Eyison Joseph