New Delhi: The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has been ranked the “world’s top research university,” in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Rankings 2022, an annual publication of university rankings.
“According to the Citations Per Faculty (CPF) indicator, when universities are adjusted for faculty size (the size of the institution is taken into account for calculating the CPF), IISc Bangalore is the world’s top research university, achieving a perfect score of 100/100 for this metric,” a press statement issued by QS stated.
Citations per faculty is one of the six broad parameters on which the QS rankings are based and measures research impact. It divides the total number of citations received by a university’s research papers over a five-year period by the number of faculty at an institution.
Ashwin Fernandes, Regional Director for QS Intelligence Unit in Middle East, North Africa & South Asia told ThePrint that this is the first time that any Indian institute has scored a 100 in research or any other parameter.
In overall rankings, however, IISc has been judged the third best institution in India, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay and Delhi being in first and second positions, respectively. All three Indian institutions have made it among the top 200 in the world, according to the rankings released Wednesday.
The top three institutions globally are — Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Oxford and Stanford University ranked at number one, two and three respectively.
Apart from citations per faculty, the other parameters on which the rankings are decided include the faculty/student ratio — a proxy for teaching capacity. Student numbers are divided by faculty numbers, giving the global student body some indication of likely class sizes at their selected institution.
Then there is the institution’s academic reputation, based on survey responses from over 130,000 academics (for this year’s ranking); employer reputation which is based on survey responses from over 75,000 employers (for this year) about the relationship between institution and graduate employability. The international faculty ratio and international student ratio are two measures of internationalisation that provide an indication of a university’s ability to attract talent from across the world.
Commenting on the ranking of Indian institutions, Ben Sowter, Director of Research at QS, said: “This year’s edition of the QS World University Rankings demonstrates the excellent work that many Indian universities are doing to improve their research footprint, with positive consequences for their reputation on the global stage.”
“Conversely, our dataset also suggests that the Indian higher education sector is still struggling to provide adequate teaching capacity. Further expansion of provision — both within universities and across the sector as a whole — will be necessary if India is to continue reaching new heights,” he added.
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The QS press statement added that “IIT Bombay has maintained its position as the top Indian institution in the QS ranking for the fourth consecutive year now”.
IIT Bombay ranks joint-177 in the world, having fallen five places over the past year. IIT Delhi has become India’s second-best university, having risen from 193 rank in last year’s ranking to 185 in the latest ranking. It has overtaken IISc Bangalore, which ranks joint-186.
The other Indian institutes that have made it to the top 500 in the ranking are IIT Madras, which has improved 20 places from its last year rank and now ranks in the 255 bracket. IIT Kanpur, Kharagpur, Guwahati and Roorkee are the other institutes in the 500 bracket, in that order.
Delhi University is in the 501-510 bracket, while Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has for the first time been ranked in the top 600 bracket in QS World Rankings. Thirty-five Indian institutions have found a place in the QS rank this year.
The Modi government accords a lot of importance to global university rankings. The idea behind launching the Institutes of Eminence (IoEs) scheme was also to catapult institutions to global rankings. Currently there are 20 institutions,10 private and 10 public, including IIT Delhi, Bombay and IISc Bangalore that have been declared IOEs by the Modi government. Public institutions like IITs and IISc receive funds from the government under the scheme and the private ones get autonomy from government regulations.
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)