The University of Johannesburg (UJ)’s investment in the next generation of African professionals has seen the Institution becoming a national standard-bearer for transformation, inclusiveness, teaching and research excellence. This has once again been acknowledged with UJ being ranked among the Top 100 universities in the prestigious Times Higher Education(THE) 2019 Emerging Economies University Rankings, which was released on Tuesday, 15 January 2019.
UJ remains steady at sixth position among the nine South African universities ranked, while also retaining its position among the Top 100 universities (at 99). The ranking examines each university’s strengths against all of its core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook. For this ranking, the corresponding weightings, of the same set of performance indicators as adopted in the flagship world ranking, are carefully recalibrated to better exhibit the characteristics and priorities of universities in developing economies, assigning greater emphasis to industry connections and internationalisation.
Says Prof Saurabh Sinha, UJ’s Deputy Vice-Chancellor of Research and Internationalisation: “This is a noteworthy achievement, meaning that UJ is one of the top 442 research-intensive universities in the 43 countries classified as emerging economies or frontier economies including the “BRICS” nations of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.”
Prof Sinha concludes: “The University is moving forward in bringing our strategy, of Global Excellence and Stature, in the context of the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We invested heavily in the teaching and learning domain to make it possible for students from the poorest backgrounds and schools to shine academically. Our staff and students will continue to strive for excellence in teaching, research and innovation in our commitment to national and global imperatives. However, the ranking provides us with the opportunity to review our progress. I have no doubt that we can continuously improve as we arecommitted to the national mandate of producing a skilled workforce, addressing issues of redress and equity and helping South Africa move from a resource-based economy to a knowledge-based economy.One such area where more work is required is our efforts to engage industry to invest more in the University.”
