- · Covenant University and the University of Ibadan are the jointly highest ranked universities in Nigeria, both coming 800-1,000, in Times Higher Education’s (THE) largest World University Rankings.
- · Federal University of Technology Akure and University of Lagos are the second highest ranked universities in the country coming in band 1001-1200.
- · Nigeria has two universities in the top 1,000 and seven in the top 1,500 in the world.
- The top 10 universities in Nigeria suffered a setback in this year’s World University Rankings. The University of Lagos dropped from 401–500 to 1001–1200 and lost the title of best ranked university in the country (which it held jointly with University of Ibadan last year). The University of Ibadan also dropped significantly from 401–500 last year to band 801–1000.
In the 20th year of the ranking 1,904 universities – up from 1,799 from last year – from 108 countries and regions are ranked. THE’s World University Rankings 2024 are the most comprehensive, rigorous and balanced global ranking assessing research-intensive universities across 18 performance indicators covering their core missions of teaching, research, knowledge transfer and internationalisation.
Nigerian universities in THE’s World University Rankings 2024
| Institution | Rank 2024 | Rank 2023 |
| Covenant University | 801–1000 | 601–800 |
| University of Ibadan | 801–1000 | 401–500 |
| Federal University of Technology Akure | 1001–1200 | 1001–1200 |
| University of Lagos | 1001–1200 | 401–500 |
| Bayero University | 1201–1500 | 1001–1200 |
| University of Ilorin | 1201–1500 | 1201–1500 |
| University of Nigeria Nsukka | 1201–1500 | 1201–1500 |
| Afe Babalola University | 1501+ | NR |
| University of Benin | 1501+ | 1201–1500 |
| Federal University of Agriculture, Abeokuta | 1501+ | 1501+ |
| Ladoke Akintola University of Technology | 1501+ | 1501+ |
| Lagos State University | 1501+ | NR |
| Nnamdi Azikiwe University | 1501+ | 1501+ |
| Obafemi Awolowo University | 1501+ | 1201–1500 |
| University of Port Harcourt | 1501+ | NR |
Times Higher Education 2024 World University Rankings Full List: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2024/world-ranking
The number of Nigerian universities in the rankings has grown considerably over the years with just four in 2020, six in 2022 doubling to 12 in 2023 and up to 15 this year.
Several updates have been made to World University Rankings 2024 methodology to include unprecedented levels of breadth, depth, detail and assessment of data making it the most rigorous and robust ranking of its kind in the world.
This year there are 18 calibrated performance indicators (up from 13 last year), which are grouped into five pillars: teaching, research quality, research environment, international outlook and industry. Four of the five new metrics include three that look at Research Quality and one that examines patents in the industry pillar.
Since 2021, research quality has declined significantly in Nigeria relative to the rest of the world. In contrast, the country’s international score, compared to the world average, has been growing steadily over the last four years.
Please note the studying abroad metric is not used in the ranking calculation.
Phil Baty, THE’s Chief global affairs officer, said:
“While Nigeria’s universities faced several setbacks this year, what is particularly encouraging is that more and more universities in the country are submitting data to the rankings. They are keen to stand up and be counted, to compete and importantly make their presence felt on the global university stage. Only with this kind of rigorous, global benchmarking can Nigerian universities identify the challenges and opportunities for improved international competitiveness.
“We strongly encourage even more universities in the country to participate in the most comprehensive, authoritative and rigorous ranking of its kind in the world and to deploy the data to develop a clear pathway to success.”
The UK’s University of Oxford is the highest ranked university in the world in the World University Rankings with Stanford University taking second place, making it the US’s top ranked university, and in third place is the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
THE’s top 10 universities in the world
| Institution | Country/region | 2024 Rank |
| University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 1 |
| Stanford University | United States | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 3 |
| Harvard University | United States | 4 |
| University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 5 |
| Princeton University | United States | 6 |
| California Institute of Technology | United States | 7 |
| Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 8 |
| University of California, Berkeley | United States | 9 |
| Yale University | United States | 10 |
View the full World University Rankings 2024 results and see World University Rankings 2024 methodology.
2. Please note some changes to institutions’ scores will be influenced by methodological changes this year and we’d advise noting that when making comparisons with previous year’s results.
3. Top 100 universities in THE’s WUR 2024
| Institution | Country/Region | 2024 Rank |
| University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 1 |
| Stanford University | United States | 2 |
| Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States | 3 |
| Harvard University | United States | 4 |
| University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 5 |
| Princeton University | United States | 6 |
| California Institute of Technology | United States | 7 |
| Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 8 |
| University of California, Berkeley | United States | 9 |
| Yale University | United States | 10 |
| ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 11 |
| Tsinghua University | China | 12 |
| The University of Chicago | United States | 13 |
| Peking University | China | 14 |
| Johns Hopkins University | United States | 15 |
| University of Pennsylvania | United States | 16 |
| Columbia University | United States | 17 |
| University of California, Los Angeles | United States | 18 |
| National University of Singapore | Singapore | 19 |
| Cornell University | United States | 20 |
| University of Toronto | Canada | 21 |
| UCL | United Kingdom | 22 |
| University of Michigan-Ann Arbor | United States | 23 |
| Carnegie Mellon University | United States | 24 |
| University of Washington | United States | 25 |
| Duke University | United States | 26 |
| New York University | United States | 27 |
| Northwestern University | United States | 28 |
| The University of Tokyo | Japan | 29 |
| University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom | =30 |
| Technical University of Munich | Germany | =30 |
| Nanyang Technological University, Singapore | Singapore | 32 |
| École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Switzerland | 33 |
| University of California, San Diego | United States | 34 |
| University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 35 |
| Georgia Institute of Technology | United States | 36 |
| University of Melbourne | Australia | 37 |
| King’s College London | United Kingdom | =38 |
| LMU Munich | Germany | =38 |
| Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris | France | 40 |
| University of British Columbia | Canada | 41 |
| University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign | United States | 42 |
| Shanghai Jiao Tong University | China | 43 |
| Fudan University | China | 44 |
| KU Leuven | Belgium | 45 |
| London School of Economics and Political Science | United Kingdom | 46 |
| Universität Heidelberg | Germany | 47 |
| Delft University of Technology | Netherlands | 48 |
| McGill University | Canada | 49 |
| Karolinska Institute | Sweden | 50 |
| University of Manchester | United Kingdom | 51 |
| University of Texas at Austin | United States | 52 |
| Chinese University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 53 |
| Monash University | Australia | 54 |
| Kyoto University | Japan | =55 |
| Zhejiang University | China | =55 |
| University of Science and Technology of China | China | 57 |
| Université Paris-Saclay | France | 58 |
| University of California, Davis | United States | 59 |
| The University of Sydney | Australia | 60 |
| University of Amsterdam | Netherlands | 61 |
| Seoul National University | South Korea | 62 |
| University of Wisconsin-Madison | United States | 63 |
| Brown University | United States | =64 |
| The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology | Hong Kong | =64 |
| Wageningen University & Research | Netherlands | =64 |
| Australian National University | Australia | 67 |
| Washington University in St Louis | United States | 68 |
| University of California, Santa Barbara | United States | 69 |
| The University of Queensland | Australia | 70 |
| Institut Polytechnique de Paris | France | 71 |
| University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | United States | 72 |
| Nanjing University | China | 73 |
| University of Southern California | United States | 74 |
| Sorbonne University | France | 75 |
| Yonsei University (Seoul campus) | South Korea | 76 |
| Leiden University | Netherlands | 77 |
| Boston University | United States | 78 |
| University of Groningen | Netherlands | 79 |
| University of Zurich | Switzerland | 80 |
| University of Bristol | United Kingdom | 81 |
| City University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong | 82 |
| Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) | South Korea | 83 |
| UNSW Sydney | Australia | 84 |
| University of Minnesota | United States | 85 |
| Purdue University West Lafayette | United States | 86 |
| University of Glasgow | United Kingdom | =87 |
| Hong Kong Polytechnic University | Hong Kong | =87 |
| Humboldt University of Berlin | Germany | =87 |
| RWTH Aachen University | Germany | 90 |
| University of Bonn | Germany | 91 |
| University of California, Irvine | United States | =92 |
| Vanderbilt University | United States | =92 |
| Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin | Germany | 94 |
| Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russian Federation | =95 |
| University of Tübingen | Germany | =95 |
| KTH Royal Institute of Technology | Sweden | =97 |
| University of Southampton | United Kingdom | =97 |
| Erasmus University Rotterdam | Netherlands | =99 |
| Ohio State University (Main campus) | United States | =99 |
