UI surpasses Covenant University to become Nigeria’s best-ranked institution in the 2026 Times Higher Education global rankings.
The University of Ibadan (UI) has been named Nigeria’s top university in the 2026 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, moving up from fourth place last year. Released on Thursday, the ranking placed UI within the 801–1,000 global band, ahead of Covenant University, which had topped the list in 2024 and 2025.
THE assessed 2,191 institutions from 115 countries using 18 indicators across five key areas: teaching, research environment, research quality, industry engagement, and international outlook.
In Nigeria, the University of Lagos (UNILAG) ranked second, followed by Bayero University Kano (BUK) and Covenant University in third and fourth positions. UNILAG achieved the highest research quality score, while BUK led in international outlook.
Other top Nigerian universities include Landmark University, Ahmadu Bello University, Federal University of Technology Minna, and University of Ilorin.
THE drew on 174.9 million citations from 18.7 million research papers, alongside survey responses from more than 108,000 scholars worldwide.