New Delhi: Eight years after Indian Institute of Science (IISc) secured a place among the world’s top 150 universities in the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World Rankings, an annual publication of global university rankings, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B) has become the second Indian institute to achieve the feat.
While IISc had ranked 147 in the QS 2016 list, in the rankings for this year — the Quacquarelli Symonds World Rankings 2024 — released late Tuesday, IIT-B climbed 23 positions from its previous year’s ranking to secure the 149th slot. This is IIT-B’s highest-ever ranking in the QS list.
“In the QS World University Rankings 2024, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay emerges as the new torchbearer for Indian higher education. IIT Bombay’s impressive trajectory of consistent improvements in research quality and reputation has facilitated its rise to prominence. Over the past five years, it has propelled its Employer Reputation ranking from 102nd to 69th and improved its Citations per Faculty rank from 226th to 133rd,” noted a statement released by QS Rankings.
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.
Attributing the success of the institution to years of continued efforts by faculty and students, IIT Bombay director Subhasis Chaudhuri told ThePrint, “At IIT Bombay we are always looking at avenues of growth and opportunities to expand the ambit of our scientific experiments. Over the last few years we have revamped our curriculum in a manner which promotes student research starting at the graduate level itself. We have integrated our masters and PhD programs to facilitate this, so now a student is pursuing M.Tech or M.Sc along with their PhD.”
While IIT Bombay has made significant progress in this year’s rankings, some other Indian institutes have slipped from their previous positions.
IISc, which was ranked at 155 in the QS 2023 rankings, dropped to 255 this year.
In a statement to ThePrint, QS said, “IISc’s metrics in internationalization indicators, such as International Students Ratio, International Faculty Ratio, and Employer Reputation Indicator, have seen a decline. QS’s novel indicators like Sustainability, Employment Outcomes, and International Research Network, demonstrate potential growth areas for this esteemed institution. Nonetheless, among an estimated 30,000 universities worldwide, achieving the 225th global position is a commendable feat.”
IIT Delhi too fell from 174 in the QS 2023 rankings to 197 in this year’s rankings, IIT Kanpur slipped from 264 to 278 and IIT Madras from 250 to 285, among others. On the other hand, Delhi University, ranked at 407, and Anna University ranked at 427, have found place among the top 500 institutions the world over for the first time.
With 45 universities ranked in the list this year, India is the seventh most represented country globally on the QS 2024 and the third in Asia, trailing behind China (Mainland), which has 71 universities on the list, and Japan, with 52 universities.
The top three institutes globally on this year’s list are Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, followed by UK’s Cambridge University and Oxford University. National University Singapore has become the first Asian university to break into the top 10 rankings.
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Gains for IIT Bombay
According to the ranking indicators IIT Bombay has performed significantly well on parameters of citation per faculty, employer reputation and research. Over the past five years, it has improved its employer reputation ranking from 102 to 69 and its citations per faculty rank from 226 to 133.
“From 2018 to 2022, IIT Bombay generated 143,800 citations from 15,905 academic papers, registering a research growth of approximately 17%. Its research endeavours are largely concentrated in the fields of Engineering and Technology and Natural Sciences, with particularly impactful collaborative work in Astrophysics. IIT Bombay’s research quality is further demonstrated by the fact that 30% of its output is published in the top 10% of academic journals by impact. This figure surpasses the global average by 6% and is a staggering 15% higher than the average among Indian institutions,” added the statement released by QS.
The institute has also laid emphasis on hiring good quality faculty over the years, pointed out Chaudhuri, and laying heavy emphasis on increasing its research funding and increasing industry participation.
“In addition to this, we have also taken measures to bring more funding for research. While the Ministry of Education has been supportive, we have also managed to increase alumni and CSR funding initiatives to fund our research. We have also set up centers of excellence on our campus on interdisciplinary collaborations in research. All of these efforts are paying off now,” said Chaudhuri.
He added: “IIT-B, in our bid to increase the number of students involved in doctoral research, has also set up a section 8 company [a not-for-profit company to promote areas like the arts, science, sports or education] with Monash University, Australia. Over the past five years, we have had 200 students pursue their PhDs from there. Our academic and employers’ perception has also improved over the years as we have been training our students to develop an analytical mindset to build projects of scale.”
Change in parameters, drop in ranking of Indian universities
The QS ranking introduced three new indicators this year — sustainability, employment outcomes, and international research network — each carrying a weightage of five percent. In order to accommodate the three new indicators, QS made adjustments to the importance assigned to other parameters.
The weightage given to the academic reputation indicator has been lowered from 40 percent to 30 percent. Similarly, the emphasis on faculty-student ratio has also been decreased from 15 percent to 10 percent and the significance attributed to the employer reputation indicator has been increased from 10 percent to 15 percent. The reduction in the weightage of these parameters is believed to have led to the drop in the ranking of Indian institutes.
In its statement to ThePrint on the change in parameters, QS said, “For our 20th anniversary, we revamped our evaluation methodology to maintain its relevance over the next twenty years. Hence, comparing the annual results may not yield accurate insights. However, next year, we will possess two comparable datasets based on the updated methodology.”
The statement added: “A significant amendment is the reduction in the Faculty/Student Ratio’s weight from 20% to 10% in the total score. Traditionally, this has been one of IISc’s strengths, yet its influence on the overall score has decreased.”
Talking about the parameters of rankings, Chaudhuri said that international diversity, which is one of parameters, fails to consider academic diversity of an institution.
“If you remove the category of international student and international faculty as a parameter from the ranking, IIT-B would probably rank within the top 80 institutions the world over. I believe that instead of looking at regional diversity amongst students and faculty, academic diversity should be a measure of comparison,” he said.
He added: “India is a big country with large academic diversity, our students — who are from within the country — come from varied cultures and backgrounds. We don’t need international students for that diversity. For smaller European countries, their students and faculty may have different passports but what kind of diversity are we really aiming to measure?”
He further clarified, ”By academic diversity I mean that we have students who have studied from different boards and faculty members who have studied in countries like the US or Canada. On the other hand US colleges have faculty who themselves may have studied from US colleges. Having an Indian passport does not make them diverse.”
(Edited by Poulomi Banerjee)
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