SA has 3 universities in Shanghai's Top 500

Each year Shanghai's University rank the World's Top 500 Universities by several indicators of academic or research performance and for the 2008 rankings South Africa reached 25th place in the country rankings with UCT, WITS and UKZN in the top 500.

The indicators include:

• alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, (The total number of the alumni of an institution winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals in Physics, Chemistry, Medicine and Economics and Fields Medal in Mathematics)
• highly cited researchers,
• articles published in Nature and Science,
• articles indexed in major citation indices, (Science Citation Index-Expanded and Social Science Citation Index in 2007. Only publications of article type are considered.)
• the per capita academic performance of an institution. (The weighted scores of the above five indicators divided by the number of full-time equivalent academic staff.)

There are many methodological and technical problems with the ranking. Methodological problems include: the proportion of indicators on teaching and services, the weight of per capita performance, the type of institutions (comprehensive or specialized), the language bias in publications, the selection of awards and the experience of award winners. Technical problems include: the definition of institutions, the attribution of publications and awards, and the history of institutions.