The University of Pretoria (UP) has improved its global position significantly in four of the five broad subject areas in the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject report, published on 28 February.

Overall, UP is ranked in the 501-550 rank range. With around 26 000 universities globally, this puts UP in the top 1,9% of universities worldwide.

In Social Sciences and Management (ranked 255) the University moved up 87 places while in the Arts and Humanities (ranked 264) the University improved its position with 61 places. Engineering and Technology, which was placed last year in the 450-500 bracket, now ranks at position 375 – the second highest placing in South Africa. The broad area of Life Sciences and Medicine also saw improvement from position 383 in 2017 to 348.

The broad subject areas are made up of 48 subjects and UP is listed amongst the top 500 universities globally for the following 15 subjects:

Theology, Divinity and Religious Studies (top 100), Agriculture and Forestry (top 150) and in the top 200 universities for Law, Archaelogy, and Architecture.

For Education, UP was placed in the top 250 universities worldwide and was ranked in the top 300 universities globally for Sociology, Chemical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. With regards to Electrical Engineering and Economics, UP was placed in the top 350 universities and in the top 400 universities for Biology and Medicine. UP was also ranked for Computer Science and Chemistry, placing in the top 450 and 500 universities worldwide, respectively for these subjects.

The QS World University Rankings rank the top tertiary institutions around the world against several indicators, including academic reputation, employer reputation, number of citations per faculty, student to faculty ratio, international faculty, and international students. This allows the quality of universities to be compared and ranked against their peers. In addition to scoring and ranking universities on their overall results, QS also publishes separate subject rankings.