The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, has secured eighth rank in the best small universities of the world list released by an international rating agency, Times Higher Education.
However, not a single Indian higher educational institution could make it to the list of top 200 universities of the world.
“The IISc is edging closer to the top 200, claiming a spot in the 201-250 band, its highest ever position,” the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking noted in an article analysing the 2017 world university ranking results.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Guwahati, and Savitribai Phule Pune University, which were ranked 14 and 18 respectively in the 2016, could not retain their position in the top 20 this time.
Human Resource Minister Prakash Javadekar congratulated the IISc for its achievement. “It is a good news for us that one of our institutions has been ranked among the world's top 10 universities. This shows our determination to improve quality of education at all levels and increased focus on research and innovation,” he told reporters on sidelines of an event here on Tuesday.
The IISc, established in 1909, had grabbed a spot in 91-100 band in the THE’s World University Reputation Rankings for 2011. It became the first Indian higher educational institution to be ranked 99th in the list of top 100 THE World University Rankings for engineering and technology for the year 2015-16.
The University of Oxford emerged as the first UK University to top the THE World University Rankings in the 12-year history of the table, knocking the five-time leader, the California Institute of Technology, into second place in the 2017 ranking list.
As many as 289 Asian universities from 24 countries made the overall list of 980 institutions and an elite group of 19 figured in the top 200.
“When analysing which countries achieve the highest average scores, Singapore comes top on all five of the pillars underlying the ranking – teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook. Hong Kong is second for teaching, third for research and fourth for citations,” the THE Rankings said in an article.
