CWUR: Nigerian varsities not in global top 1000 because of research quality

The Center for World Universities Ranking (CWUR) has explained why Nigerian universities were not considered in their Top 1000 global ranking.

When contacted by TheCable, the organisation said Nigeria was not a contender owing to lack of quality research.

“The main reason for the absence of Nigerian universities from the top 1000 is that the research output of high-quality scientific publications in Nigeria is small compared to other countries (for example, South Africa, Egypt, and even Uganda),” CWUR said.

The criteria used include quality of education, alumni employment, quality of faculty, publications, influence, citations and broad impact.

The top five are: Harvard University, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (all US), University of Cambridge and University of Oxford (both UK).

The list which was released on Tuesday had only nine African universities with five of the universities from South Africa and the rest from Egypt.

Eight universities in the US made it to the top ten and the other two universities were from the United Kingdom.

A look at the national rankings show that South Africa, Egypt and Uganda are the only African countries recognized by the organization.

In May 2016, a global ranking released by Times Higher Education (THE) ranked University of Ibadan between 601 and 800—no specific rank was given.

In this ranking, University of Ibadan was the only university that made it to the top 1000.