The University of Cape Coast (UCC) in Ghana has been ranked the number one university globally for research influence.

It has also been ranked the number one university in Ghana, the top university in West Africa, and part of the top 5 universities in Africa.

The announcement was contained in the 2022 Times Higher Education annual rankings.

Universities that published high-impact research on Covid-19 have soared up the league table, with China reaping the most rewards.

The 2022 World University Rankings include more than 1,600 universities across 99 countries and territories, making them the largest and most diverse university rankings to date.

The table is based on 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

This year’s ranking analyzed more than 108 million citations across over 14.4 million research publications and included survey responses from almost 22,000 scholars globally. Overall, about 430,000 data points from more than 2,100 institutions were collected.

Trusted worldwide by students, teachers, governments and industry experts, this year’s league table reveals how the Covid-19 pandemic has started to shift global higher education performance.

View the 2022 World University Rankings methodology

The University of Oxford tops the ranking for the sixth consecutive year, while mainland China has two institutions in the top 20 for the first time: Peking University and Tsinghua University share 16th place.

Institut Polytechnique de Paris is the highest new entry at 95th place, following a merger of five institutions.

The US is the most-represented country overall with 183 institutions, and also the most represented in the top 200 (57), although its share of universities in this elite group is falling.

Mainland China now has the joint fifth-highest number of institutions in the top 200 (up from joint seventh last year), overtaking Canada and on a par with the Netherlands.

Six new countries featured in the table compared with last year: Azerbaijan, Ecuador, Ethiopia, Fiji, Palestine and Tanzania.

Harvard University tops the teaching pillar, while the University of Oxford tops the research pillar and Macau University of Science and Technology leads the international pillar.

Overall, 1,662 universities are ranked. A further 452 universities are listed with “reporter” status, meaning that they provided data but did not meet the eligibility criteria to receive a rank.

Meanwhile, no university in Ghana has ever achieved this position since the Times Higher Education (THE) annual rankings commenced nearly two decades ago.