The American newspaper US News has published its latest ranking “2022-2023 Best Global Universities”. Are there any good universities in Africa? Which African country has the best university? Hereafter the ranking of the best universities in Africa – 2023.

The American newspaper US News has published its latest ranking “2022-2023 Best Global Universities”. Hereafter the ranking of the best universities in Africa – 2023. It is intended to help students seeking prestigious universities to better navigate the higher education environment. Leadership!

Methodology

To create the pool of 2,011, U.S. News first included the top 250 universities in the results of Clarivate’s global reputation survey, described further below. Next, they added any other institutions that met the minimum threshold of at least 1,250 papers published from 2016 to 2020. Therefore, this paper threshold is unchanged from last year. Those two criteria created the final 2022-2023 ranking pool of 2,011 institutions from which the top-scoring 2,000 universities are ranked in the overall ranking.

As a result of these criteria, many stand-alone graduate schools, including Rockefeller University in New York and the University of California—San Francisco, were eligible to be ranked and were included in the ranking universe.

The second step was to calculate the rankings using the 13 indicators and weights that U.S. News chose to measure global research performance. Each of the school’s profile pages on usnews.com lists the overall global score as well as numerical ranks for the 13 indicators, allowing students to compare each school’s standing in each indicator.

The indicators and their weights in the ranking formula are listed in the table below, with related indicators grouped together; an explanation of each follows.

RANKING INDICATOR		WEIGHT
Global research reputation		12.5%
Regional research reputation		12.5%
Publications		10%
Books		2.5%
Conferences		2.5%
Normalized citation impact		10%
Total citations		7.5%
Number of publications that are among the 10% most cited		12.5%
Percentage of total publications that are among the 10% most cited		10%
International collaboration – relative to country		5%
International collaboration		5%
Number of highly cited papers that are among the top 1% most cited in their respective field		5%
Percentage of total publications that are among the top 1% most highly cited papers		5%

Ranking of the best universities in Africa – 2023

Universities of africa

Rank in Africa	University	City	Country	Global score	Global ranking
1	University of Cape Town	Cape Town	South Africa	68,00	125
2	University of Witwatersrand	Johannesburg	South Africa	60,80	244
3	Stellenbosch University	Stellenbosch	South Africa	58,10	304
4	University of Ibadan	Ibadan	Nigeria	56,10	344
5	Cairo University	Giza	Egypt	55,60	363
6	University of Kwazulu Natal	Durabn	South Africa	55,30	370
7	University of Johannesburg	Johannesburg	South Africa	53,90	421
8	Mansoura University	Mansoura	Egypt	53,30	447
9	University of Pretoria	Hatdied	South Africa	53,10	452
10	North West University	Potchefstroom	South Africa	51,70	487
11	Mekelle University	Mekelle	Ethiopia	51,60	493
12	Ain Shams University	Cairo	Egypt	50,00	540
13	Addis Ababa University	Addis Ababa	Ethiopia	49,00	573
14	University of Lagos	Lagos	Nigeria	48,60	587
15	Alexandria University	Alexandria	Egypt	48,10	611
16	University of the Western Cape	Belville	South Africa	47,70	625
17	Kafrelsheikh University	Kafr El-Sheikh	Egypt	47,20	639
18	Zagazig University	Zagazig	Egypt	46,70	661
19	Kwame Nkrumah University Science & Technology	Kumasi	Ghana	46,00	688
20	Assiut University	Assiut	Egypt	45,40	710
21	University of Zambia	Lusaka	Zambia	45,10	725
22	Al Azhar University	Cairo	Egypt	44,60	739
23	Makerere University	Kampala	Uganda	44,30	757
24	University of Nairobi	Nairobi	Kenya	43,30	794
25	Suez Canal University	Ismailia	Egypt	43,00	807
26	University of South Africa	Pretoria	South Africa	42,50	821
27	Tanta University	Tanta	Egypt	42,30	835
28	Hassan II University of Casablanca	Casablanca	Morocco	41,80	860
29	Mohammed First University of Oujda	Oujda	Morocco	41,50	871
30	University of the Free State	Bloemfontein	South Africa	41,40	875
31	University of Ghana	Legon	Ghana	40,80	907
32	Universite de Tunis-El-Manar	Tunis	Tunisia	40,50	920
33	Menofia University	Shebin El Koum	Egypt	40,30	928
34	University of Gondar	Gondar	Ethiopia	40,20	930
35	Rhodes University	Grahamstown	South Africa	40,10	935
36	Benha University	Benha	Egypt	40,00	943
37	Minia University	Minya	Egypt	39,90	948
38	Beni Suef University	Beni Suef	Egypt	39,70	959
39	Fayoum University	Al Fayoum	Egypt	39,20	977
40	University of Yaounde I	Yaounde	Cameroon	38,90	992
41	Mohammed V University in Rabat	Rabat	Morocco	38,70	1002
41	Tshwane University of Technology	Pretoria	South Africa	38,70	1002
43	Universite de Sfax	Sfax	Tunisia	38,40	1017
44	Helwan University	Cairo	Egypt	39,90	1085
45	Obafemi Awolowo University	Ile-Ife	Nigeria	36,80	1088
46	Sohag University	Nasir City	Egypt	36,70	1095
47	Cadi Ayyad University of Marrakech	Marrakech	Morocco	36,60	1101
48	University of Zimbabwe	Harare	Zimbabwe	34,50	1190
49	University of Nigeria	Nsukka	Nigeria	34,40	1198
50	Universite de Carthage	Tunis	Tunisia	34,10	1216

Analysis

Egypt and South Africa are by far the countries with the best universities in Africa, with 17 and 12 respectively in the ranking. They are followed by Nigeria and Morocco with 4 universities each. Then come Ethiopia and Tunisia, followed by Ghana, and finally Zambia, Uganda and Kenya. Note that only 10 countries are represented in this ranking.

Country	Number of Universities	Average ranking	Average Scoring
Egypt	17	26,00	44,23
South Africa	12	15,50	50,94
Nigeria	4	28,00	43,98
Morocco	4	36,25	39,65
Ethiopia	3	19,33	46,93
Tunisia	3	41,67	37,67
Ghana	2	25,00	43,40
Zambia	1	21,00	45,10
Uganda	1	23,00	44,30
Kenya	1	24,00	43,30