Top 100 World Universities by Reputation - African universities must be ‘audacious’...

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, founded in 2004, provide the definitive list of the world's best universities, evaluated across teaching, research, international outlook, reputation and more. THE’s data are trusted by governments and universities and are a vital resource for students, helping them choose where to study

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African universities must become more “audacious” and instill a “spirit of subversion” into their missions if they are to assist in the continent’s transformation, according to an expert on African development.

Adebayo Olukoshi, regional director for Africa and West Asia at the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, told the Times Higher Education Africa Universities Summit that many African institutions have “become too normal”.

“Universities must define themselves as sites of continental renaissance – a renaissance in which the power of ideas and the reconciliation of ideas and policy, which has been missing, will become an important driving force for change,” he said.

He added that poverty reduction would be welcome, but it “cannot be a strategy for [Africa’s] development”.

Speaking as part of a panel discussion on reputation building, he added that it is important for African universities to “define notions of excellence” that “speak to the immediate and specific needs of our context” and reject “abstract” goals, such as achieving “world-class excellence” or producing “world-class leaders”. He said that this is necessary to ensure that institutions do not become “completely irrelevant” even when they “appear to be defined as the gold standard in higher education”.

RANKING BELOW:

1. Harvard University, United States (1)

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States (4)

3. Stanford University, United States (5)

4. University of Cambridge, United Kingdom (2)

5. University of Oxford, United Kingdom (3)

6. University of California, Berkeley, United States (6)

7. Princeton University, United States (7)

8. Yale University, United States (8)

9. Columbia University, United States (10)

10. California Institute of Technology, United States (9)

11. University of Chicago, United States (11)

12. University of Tokyo, Japan (12)

13. University of California, Los Angeles, United States (13)

14. University of Michigan, United States (19)

15. Imperial College London, United Kingdom (14)

16. University of Pennsylvania, United States (23)

17. Cornell University, United States (20)

18. Tsinghua University, China (26)

19. ETH Zürich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich, Switzerland (15)

20. University College London, United Kingdom (17)

21. Peking University, China (32)

22. Johns Hopkins University, United States (18)

23. University of Toronto, Canada (16)

24. London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom (22)

25. New York University, United States (20)

26. National University of Singapore, Singapore (24)

27. Kyoto University, Japan (27)

28. Duke University, United States (34)

29. University of Washington, United States (33)

=30. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States (30)

=30. Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russian Federation (25)

=30. Northwestern University, United States (47)

33. Carnegie Mellon University, United States (28)

34. University of Texas at Austin, United States (46)

=35. University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States (38)

=35. University of California, San Diego, United States (41)

37. University of British Columbia, Canada (37)

38. University of Edinburgh, United Kingdom (29)

39. McGill University, Canada (35)

=40. Georgia Institute of Technology, United States (49)

=41. LMU Munich, Germany (35)

42. University of California, San Francisco, United States (38)

43. King’s College London, United Kingdom (31)

44. Pennsylvania State University, United States (61-70)

=45. University of California, Davis, United States (44)

=45. University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong (51-60)

=45. Seoul National University, South Korea (51-60)

48. École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (48)

=49. University of Manchester, United Kingdom (50)

=49. University of Melbourne, Australia (41)

=49. University of Minnesota, United States (71-80)

51-60. Delft University of Technology, Netherlands (51-60)

51-60. Heidelberg University, Germany (38)

51-60. Humboldt University of Berlin, Germany (41)

51-60. Karolinska Institute, Sweden (45)

51-60. University of Maryland, College Park, United States (91-100)

51-60. University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, United States (61-70)

51-60. Ohio State University, United States (81-90)

51-60. Osaka University, Japan -

51-60. Purdue University, United States (71-80)

51-60. Technical University of Munich, Germany (61-70)

61-70. University of Amsterdam, Netherlands (51-60)

61-70. Australian National University, Australia (51-60)

61-70. École Normale Supérieure, France (61-70)

61-70. KU Leuven, Belgium (51-60)

61-70. Michigan State University, United States (71-80)

61-70. University of Southern California, United States (61-70)

61-70. University of Sydney, Australia (51-60)

61-70. Tohoku University, Japan -

61-70. Washington University in St Louis, United States (81-90)

71-80. Boston University, United States (71-80)

71-80. Brown University, United States (71-80)

71-80. University of California, Santa Barbara, United States (61-70)

71-80. Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong -

71-80. Free University of Berlin, Germany (51-60)

71-80. Fudan University, China -

71-80. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong (71-80)

71-80. University of Pittsburgh, United States (71-80)

71-80. Shanghai Jiao Tong University, China -

71-80. Texas A&M University, United States (81-90)

81-90. Indiana University Bloomington, United States -

81-90. Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), South Korea -

81-90. Leiden University, Netherlands (61-70)

81-90. London Business School, United Kingdom (91-100)

81-90. Nanyang Technological University, Singapore (91-100)

81-90. National Taiwan University, Taiwan (61-70)

81-90. Pierre and Marie Curie University, France -

81-90. RWTH Aachen University, Germany (91-100)

81-90. Saint Petersburg State University, Russian Federation (71-80)

81-90. Tokyo Institute of Technology, Japan -

81-90. University of Warwick, United Kingdom (81-90)

81-90. Zhejiang University, China -

91-100. Arizona State University, United States -

91-100. University of Colorado Boulder, United States -

91-100. École Polytechnique, France (91-100)

91-100. Insead, France -

91-100. Lund University, Sweden -

91-100. Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Russian Federation -

91-100. Panthéon-Sorbonne University – Paris 1, France (51-60)

91-100. University of São Paulo, Brazil (51-60)

91-100. Utrecht University, Netherlands (71-80)

91-100. Wageningen University and Research Center, Netherlands (61-70)

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