Makerere University has been placed in the 13th position of best Universities in Africa, and emerges number one, with the exclusion of Egyptian and South African universities.
According to the latest rankings by webometrics, Kampala International University (KIU) and Mbarara University of Science and Technology (MUST) trailled Makerere in the second and third positions respectively in Uganda.
Kyambogo University was placed in the 4th position, while Gulu university emerged the 5th, according to these rankings.
The Webometrics Ranking of World Universities is a Spanish-based research body, which is a brainchild of the cybermetrics lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior De Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC).
Accordingly, a total of 11,993 universities across Africa were assessed on the basis of research, openness, academic excellence, social impact, visibility and hence Makerere emerged the 13th.
However, news of Makerere University emerging the 13th in the league of best universities in Africa were received with consternation by the institution’s stakeholders.
For instance; the Vice-Chancellor for this East Africa’s oldest institution of higher learning Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe took to Twitter and noted that the institution is contemplating conducting a review in the participation of such high-profile rankings, amidst participation withdrawals by top world institutions on grounds of credibility.
“As top Law Schools withdraw from various university rankings citing credibility, we are going to review our participation in each of these rankings. We will subsequently decide on whether to continue participating in some or not all.” Prof. Nawangwe Tweeted.
In November 2022, Yale Law School and Harvard Medical School announced their withrdrawal from the US news and world report’s medical-school ranking, in which they had participated for decades, dealing a huge blow to the world’s high-profile rankings.
Also reacting to these rankings, Prof. Cyprian Misinde, the Director of Quality Assurance at the university said the institution has not achieved its goal of being number one on continental Africa.
He said many bottlenecks have relentlessly stood in the university’s way as it struggles to emerge the best in Africa, including the publication of inclosed journals, whose access by the public is rather a complex process.
Prof. Misinde also explained that most of the excellent projects undertaken by some of the vibrant brains at the university are not uploaded on the institution’s website, something that limits their global visibility and impact.
“There are several reasons why we are not yet the first in Africa. One, many of our staff publish in closed-access journals. These are excellent journals, but may not be accessed easily since they require payment hence the articles they publish are not cited widely,” said Misinde.
The university, according to Prof. Misinde is also considering strengthening collaboration with other vibrant universities globally to strengthen its dominance in Africa.
This, he said will be done through signing MOUs with credible journals and publishers, which will be a significant step in enabling the university staff to publish in open access.
Also according to these rankings, Makerere emerged the 37th and 28th in terms of openness and excellence, accounting for 10% and 40% respectively. Impact or visibility looks at the number of links in the Web pages that refer to or have information about Makerere University.
Besides, transparency or openness looks at the number of citations of the works or articles by the university staff, while excellence considers the number of academic papers among the top 10% cited in each discipline in the last five years.
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