Universities in the Middle East and Africa have begun to make their mark on the overall QS World University Rankings in the last two years. But they are finding it harder to break through in the subject rankings.
Although the QS World University Rankings by Subject have now been extended to cover 30 major subjects, with the addition of agriculture and forestry this year, many of the same universities dominate across the board. With some of the most successful institutions appearing in 20 or more subject rankings, it can be just as difficult to break into the top 200 for a single subject as it is to register in international comparisons of whole universities.
Only 22 African and Middle Eastern universities appear in the subject rankings, although this is more than in previous years. In 2011, when the subject rankings were launched, just 16 made the top 200 in any subject.
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Narrow representation for African & Middle Eastern universities
This year’s 22 African and Middle Eastern entries come from just eight countries, of which only South Africa and Egypt are on the continent of Africa. Israel and South Africa are by far the most successful countries, each with five universities in the rankings. Israel appears in 25 different subjects, and South Africa in 20. Turkey and Saudi Arabia are next, each with three universities appearing in 13 and eight rankings respectively.
The other African and Middle Eastern countries featured in the rankings are: the United Arab Emirates, with the American University of Sharjah rated in the world’s top 200 universities for English language and literature for the first time; Jordan, where Yarmouk University maintains its place in the modern languages ranking; and Iran, which saw Tehran University enter the top 200 universities for statistics.
The top position for the region in any subject was the University of Cape Town’s 32nd place in the education ranking, moving up from the 51-100 range last year. UCT achieved by far the best results in Africa, also holding onto a position in the top 100 for law and moving back into the top 100 for psychology after slipping out last year.
Highlighting strengths and weaknesses in the region
Perhaps the greatest improvement is that achieved by Turkey’s Middle East Technical University, which did not appear at all in the 2011 subject rankings. The university, which is based in Ankara and also has a campus in Northern Cyprus, now features in six of the subject rankings and is ranked within the top 100 universities in the world for civil engineering.
The Hebrew University, in Jerusalem, is another star performer, appearing in the top 200 in 20 different subjects. Its best result was a top-100 finish in the earth sciences ranking, in which Tel Aviv University also featured in the top 150.
The rankings expose the strengths and weaknesses of the region. Although only accounting and finance had no universities from the Middle East and Africa in the top 200, several subjects had only one or two representatives from the region.
Saudi universities remained strong in the engineering rankings, although the country’s best results were King Saud University’s top 100 position for both education and modern languages. South Africa featured strongly in the arts and social sciences rankings, but (like the rest of Africa) the country’s universities were largely absent from the rankings for engineering and technology subjects.