KAMPALA. The US News and World Report Best Global Universities Rankings 2026-2027 has placed Makerere University the 23rd in Africa and 639 among global universities Makerere’s overall global score stood at 44.9 percent.
The rankings serve as a benchmark for students, researchers and policymakers evaluating higher education quality across countries.
The University of Cape Town in South Africa was ranked first in Africa and 122 globally, followed by Cairo University in Egypt in second position, the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa in third, the University of Ibadan in Nigeria is fourth and the Mansoura University in Egypt ranked fifth.
This report pushes Uganda’s oldest and premier institution of higher learning out of the top 20 universities in Africa. The Best Global Universities Rankings are based on assessments of academic research and reputation, as well as the strength of the institutions teaching faculty. The ranking considers 13 performance indicators that include global research reputation, regional research reputation, publications, books, conferences normalised citation impact, total citations, number of publications that are among the 10 percent most cited in the world for their respective fields and international collaboration. Other aspects assessed are percentage of total publications that are among the 10 most cited, number of highly cited papers that are among the top one percent most cited in their respective field, and percentage of total publications that are among the top one percent most highly cited papers in the world – per field and publication year.
At the regional level, Makerere was ranked best while the University of Nairobi in Kenya, which emerged 35th in Africa and 809 globally was the second-best university in the region. The University of Rwanda was ranked 89th in Africa and 1,721 globally.
Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Science in Tanzania, was ranked 92nd in Africa and 1,815 globally, while the University of Dar es Salaam was placed at 93rd in Africa and 1,835 in the world. Prof Mukadasi Buyinza, the Makerere University academic registrar, said he is yet to look at the rankings and the methodology used to arrive at the grading. Nevertheless, he said Makerere regards the UK-based Times Higher Education’s ranking highly, compared to other rankings across the globe because of its accurate measure of achievement in all the aspects considered. “Makerere has always been graded at a higher rank.
I don’t know where Makerere didn’t fare well because 23rd place is a bit on the lower side,” Prof Buyinza said. “We are waiting for Times Higher Education which is a more accurate measure of achievement in all of the aspects, because for them, they look at research, teaching, community and policy engagement. But this one here may have picked just one item, or one parameter, which is giving that result,” he said. The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof Barnabas Nawangwe, said this was the first time this agency evaluated the institution and that the university is yet to study the criteria used, given that it has been ranked better by other agencies.
“This is the first time Makerere is being ranked by this agency. Previously, they have ranked only elite universities in the developed world. We will study the criteria they use since they are ranking us below universities that have been ranked lower than us by all other agencies,” Prof Nawangwe said on Sunday. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings in 2025 placed Makerere University 12th in Africa and at number one in East Africa. Makerere’s overall score stood at 37.2, significantly outperforming peer institutions in the region with an average score of 18.8. The 2023 sub-Saharan Africa University rankings placed Makerere fifth on the continent.