Following the discontinuation of the Times Higher Education Sub-Saharan Africa rankings, QS have now announced the publication of their regional rankings.
The QS World University Rankings: Sub-Saharan Africa 2026 use the QS world rankings methodology but with different weightings and some additional metrics, comprising citations per paper, papers per faculty, and Webometrics web impact.
The leading university is the University of Cape Town, followed by the University of Johannesburg and the University of Witwatersrand. South African universities dominate the top of these rankings, taking nine of the top ten places. The best Francophone university is Cheikh Anta Diop University, Senegal, and there are no institutions from the countries where Portuguese is an official language.
The top universities for the various metrics are:
- Citations per paper; Copperbelt University, Zambia
- Papers per faculty; Stellenbosch University, South Africa
- Academic Reputation; University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Faculty student ratio; University of Namibia, Namibia
- Staff with PhD; Covenant University, Nigeria
- International Research; University of Johannesburg, South Africa
- Web impact; University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Employer Reputation; University of Cape Town, South Africa
- Sustainability; University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Source:
TopUniversities