IIT Bombay campus
THE Asia University Ranking: With eight institutes in the top 100, India is the third most represented country in the Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Ranking which launched today. While the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore retains its top position in the country by attaining the 36th spot globally, eight Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have also been featured in the top 100. This is India’s best performance since 2016, in terms of the number of institutes. Last time, India had eight institutes in the top 100 in 2016. However, the picture is different in terms of ‘quality’.
Even as more IITs have been featured in the ranking; THE claims that “overall picture for India’s IITs (is) one of general decline amid increased regional competition”. Apart from IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Delhi which have improved their performance since 2019, and IIT-Ropar which has debuted in the ranking this year, the rest of the IITs have scored lower.
“This decline comes despite four Indian institutions improving on their overall 2019 rankings score, suggesting the negative movement is down to the increased number of qualifying universities from across Asia,” THE said in an official statement.
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“Many IITs, including IIT-Bombay, IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT Madras, are making general improvements across teaching, research, and industry metrics compared to 2019. However, at the same time, they are seeing a downward trend in citation scores (only IIT Roorkee and IIT Delhi improved from 2019) and continued stagnation when it comes to internationalisation (with only IIT Bombay and IIT Madras seeing any sizeable improvement),” said THE.
The premier institutes had earlier this year boycotted the ranking index citing “lack of transparency” in the ranking parameters. THE in a statement had later asked IITs to participate and said that the boycott will be detrimental. In the THE Impact Ranking released just after the boycott, IIT-Kharagpur had given one of India’s best performance by attaining 57th rank globally.
India’s Ranking –
Rank 36 – IISc Bangalore
Rank 47 – IIT-Ropar
Rank 59 – IIT-Kharagpur
Rank 55 – IIT-Indore
Rank 657 – IIT-Delhi
Rank 69 – IIT-Bombay
Rank 83 – IIT-Roorkee
Rank 92 – Institute of Chemical Technology
Global top 10 Universities –
Rank 1: Tsinghua University, China
Rank 2: Peking University, China
Rank 3: National University of Singapore, Singapore
Rank 4: University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong
Rank 5: The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Rank 6: Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Rank 7: The University of Tokyo, Japan
Rank 8: Chinese University of Hong Kong
Rank 9: Seoul National University, South Korea
Rank 10: University of Science and Technology of China
Rank 10: Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea
Even as IISc has dropped seven places from its rank in 2019, it remains the top Indian institute for the fifth consecutive year. IIT-Ropar has given an unexpected performance as in its first-ever entry in the ranking, the IIT has made it to the top 50. IIT-Kharagpur has climbed 17 places and IIT-Delhi moved up by 24 places as compared to last year. Further, a total of 489 universities across India qualified for the ranking this year which was an increase of 72 institutes of 17 per cent as compared to last year. China not only got the global top rank with Tsinghua University but also dominated the table with 81 universities, however, the most represented country was Japan with 110 institutes.
THE Asia University Rankings 2020 use the same 13 performance indicators. THE claims that varsities are judged in four core areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.