KEY POINTS
- The University of Ibadan will be the greatest in Nigeria in 2026.
- The best research in the country is done at UNILAG.
- Covenant is really good at coming up with new concepts and working with other firms.
The University of Ibadan (UI) has once again been voted Nigeria’s finest university in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2026. It was in this place in 2023.
The report, which came published on Thursday, said that UI was between 801 and 1,000 in the globe. The University of Lagos, Bayero University, and Covenant University came in second, third, and fourth, in that order.
The University of Ibadan is at the top of the list for 2026
The Times Higher Education (THE) 2026 list looked at 2,191 schools in 115 countries. It looked at topics like education, the research environment, the quality of the research, industry participation, and also the prognosis for the globe as a whole using 18 performance characteristics.
In 2026, UI took first place from Covenant University, which had been in first place for two years in a row.
Nigeria’s success comes from research and fresh ideas
The ranking used more than 174.9 million citations from 18.7 million research papers and answers from over 108,000 researchers from all around the world. It further illustrated how higher education around the world is changing.
With a score of 66.7 points, UNILAG has the best research quality of any Nigerian university. While the view from Bayero University was the best in the world. Covenant University achieved the best score in the business, which reflects how successfully it works with companies.
Furthermore, of the 51 Nigerian universities that were ranked in 2026, only UI and UNILAG made it into the 801–1,000 range. The following three schools were BUK, Covenant, and Landmark, which were between 1,001 and 1,200. Ahmadu Bello University, FUT Minna, UNILORIN, UNIJOS, and UNN were all between 1,201 and 1,500. There were 14 institutions that were ranked higher than 1,500 and 27 that were not ranked.
