Rankings often arrive with the theatrics of league tables – who is up, who is down, and who has stolen the show. The 2026 *Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Rankings* have delivered exactly this drama, placing Covenant University at 49th globally and first in Africa, the only African university in the world’s top 50. That headline was expected to dominate the conversation. Yet, behind the applause, a quieter but equally compelling narrative emerges. The University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN) has clinched second position in Nigeria and second in Africa, standing at 161 globally. For a public university that has survived decades of infrastructural wear, policy inconsistencies, budgetary droughts, administrative turbulence, and periodic paralysis from industrial actions, this ranking is more than an accolade. It is an affirmation.
Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
Agbedo, Professor of Linguistics, Fellow of Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study, Amsterdam, is a contributing analyst to USAfrica.
Nonetheless, this affirmation has a backstory, and it is important – indeed necessary – to state it clearly. Today’s glory is a cumulative achievement, stemming from years of incremental reforms, resilience, and the foundational work of past administrations. However, this is where history aligns with the coincidental gift of timing in a manner that is both poetic and academically significant. Prof. Simon Uchenna Ortuanya assumed office in August 2025. Today, 22 November 2025, he has spent just over 100 days in office, barely enough time for any administrator to inject measurable structural changes into a ranking cycle based on data drawn from years of institutional performance. Yet, the release of this result – precisely at the cusp of his 100-day milestone – arrives as a timely and symbolic tonic, a providential boost for an administration still laying its foundational stones. It provides him a springboard, not a trophy; a mandate, not a mantra; a challenge, not a conclusion. The ranking is therefore both a legacy acknowledgment and a leadership charge.
The Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Rankings assess institutions on 11 metrics: interdisciplinary publication impact, external research funding, collaboration, research quality, institutional reputation, facilities, administrative support, promotion of interdisciplinary scholarship, among others. This is an emerging and highly competitive space in global academia, rewarding universities with the capacity to integrate STEM with social sciences, humanities, law, economics, health, and psychology. For UNN, this ranking represents the maturity of a system that has – despite all odds – retained strong disciplinary traditions while slowly embracing collaboration across fields. The previous administrations, whose efforts span curriculum innovation, research visibility, postgraduate expansion, digitisation, and internal restructuring, deserve clear credit. Their contributions created the ecosystem from which this ranking emerged. But a ranking is never simply retrospective. It is a promise of future possibilities, and this is where Prof. Ortuanya enters the frame unmistakably.
Although he has spent only 100 days in office, the ranking offers several deeply strategic implications for Prof. Ortuanya as the 16th Vice Chancellor of the 65-year old University of Nigeria. First, it marks a solid departure point. Unlike many incoming vice chancellors who inherit chaos, crises, and low institutional morale, Ortuanya begins his tenure with a national and continental endorsement of UNN’s competitive potential. This gives him a head start. Morale is high; expectations are defined; and global attention is renewed. Second, it is a mandate to reinvent the wheel. Given that the ranking is cumulative, Ortuanya’s task is not to begin from scratch, but to accelerate, sharpen, and institutionalise the gains of his predecessors. The wheel is already turning; his duty is to give it velocity. Third, the Ranking is a leverage for funding and partnerships. Rankings like this serve as institutional passports. Development partners, international grant bodies, tech companies, and global universities respond to visibility. Ortuanya can now leverage the ranking as a credential to negotiate funding, forge new partnerships and collaborations, revive dormant Memorandum of Understanding (MOUs), and expand postgraduate research. The ranking literally opens doors. Fourth, it is a challenge to aim higher in 2027. UNN at 161 is commendable. But the next ranking cycle offers a more ambitious target – to break into the global top 100, or even contest Covenant’s continental dominance. This is no longer wishful thinking; the metrics show it is technically achievable. Ortuanya’s administration must now institutionalise interdisciplinarity -centres, clusters, labs, dual-degree programmes, and integrated research pipelines. Fifth, it is a morale booster and a unifying symbol. UNN staff and students have weathered the storm, enduring years of systemic challenges. But a rising ranking resets internal psychology. Alumni become re-energised; faculties embrace competition; departments rethink silos. For a new vice chancellor, such morale is political currency – soft power that strengthens administrative legitimacy.
Covenant University’s position at the top of Africa is quite impressive, but it should serve not as a threat, but as a benchmark for public universities. If a private institution with limited history can break into the global top 50, then UNN – armed with history, talent, breadth, and ambition – can ascend even higher. Surely, the broader narrative is that UNN is quietly but consistently and intentionally reclaiming its destiny. For many years, UNN has relied on the glory of its origins. Nostalgia became both a refuge and a roadblock. But this ranking signals a philosophical pivot – a slow, steady reclamation of competitive identity. And while the heavy lifting was done by previous administrations, the symbolism of the release coinciding with Ortuanya’s first 100 days confers upon him a special stewardship responsibility. The legacy torch has been passed to him. His task – and history’s expectation – is to ensure the flame does not dim.
I conclude on a note of one heartwarming coincidence that creates consequence. The 2026 interdisciplinary ranking is not merely a global table; it is a narrative intervention. It reminds UNN of its capacity and demands from its new leadership the courage to do more. The cumulative efforts of Ortuanya’s predecessors built the platform. The ranking’s release has provided Ortuanya the cue. His challenge now is clear – raise the bar and contest the summit. If he succeeds, the next ranking will not merely confirm UNN’s return; it will announce its renaissance.
In the end, the 2026 Times Higher Education Interdisciplinary Science Ranking does more than place Covenant University on a continental pedestal or lift UNN into the rarefied air of global competitiveness. It performs a deeper civic function; it reminds us – forcefully and eloquently too – that Nigerian universities can still matter on the world stage when leadership, legacy, and institutional willpower converge. For the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, the ranking is both a mirror and a megaphone; a mirror reflecting years of cumulative effort, and a megaphone amplifying what is possible when the engines of interdisciplinarity hum in harmony. It is a quiet but authoritative validation that the university has not lost its pulse; it has only been waiting for the right administrative heartbeat to quicken its stride.
That this result arrives within the first 100 days of Prof. Simon Ortuanya as the 16th Vice Chancellor of the University of Nigeria is a coincidence too striking to ignore and too meaningful to reduce to mere happenstance. It is a symbolic benediction – an early wind at his back – signaling that the institution he now stewards and shepherds diligently is primed for reinvention, revitalisation, and renewed global ambition. The ranking does not credit him with miracles; rather, it charges him with momentum, urging him to stretch the present trajectory into a future triumph.
And that future is not fanciful. Nonetheless, with deliberate consolidation, deeper research integration, smarter partnerships, and intentional visibility, UNN can do more than retain second place; it can storm the top 100, challenge the continental hierarchy, and, perhaps, even rewrite the Covenant–UNN narrative in the next cycle. Thus, as the University raises its head a little higher and the global gaze lingers a little longer, one conclusion becomes inescapably clear: this ranking is not UNN’s destination but its departure point. It is the overture to a renaissance long deferred, now beckoning. And for Prof. Ortuanya, whose first 100 days have already carried the fragrance of purpose and the architecture of seriousness, it is an auspicious confirmation of what many had begun to whisper and what I boldly stated earlier: ‘indeed, Simon is working’.
