Panjab University jumps from 16th to 4th spot in THE rankings

CHANDIGARH: Panjab University (PU) jumped from 16th to 4th rank among Indian universities in the world university rankings of Times Higher Education (THE) 2021 announced on Wednesday.
Though the university still falls in the bracket of 601-800, it registered improvement in various areas.

The other three institutes above PU are central technical institutes like Indian Institute of Science and IITs at Ropar and Indore. According to the ranking data, there is an increase in teaching and research criteria scores. However, PU lost significantly in citations. There is a marginal decrease in industry income and international outlook scores as well.
THE world ranking is generated from five indicators which represent key areas in higher education, including teaching, research, citations, industry income and international outlook.
In overall ranking, PU got 30.2 points in 2021, which was 28.3 in 2020. In citation, the points were 52.9 in 2021, which was 56.6 in 2020. In industry income, PU got 34.7 points in 2021, which was 34.9 in 2020 and in international outlook, 16 points in 2021 and 16.5 in 2020.
Dr Ashish Jain, director, internal quality assurance cell, said as the university is working to set up an incubator centre where innovation is the main focus, they are expecting that by next year the points of industry income is going to increase, which had dipped marginally. He said citation is the area which is handed in by a third party and authorities can work to improve it. He said they were working on attracting international students, hopeful of some results before the analysis of ranking next year.
He said in February, PU submitted their data on the basis of which ranking was given. As the ranking is out at the time of admission, it will definitely help in attracting more students to PU, he added.
Professor Raj Kumar, vice-chancellor, said the improvement of ranking is primarily due to the infusion of innovation and startup culture in the university over the last two years. He said PU will focus on industry income and international outlook. He said the university is receiving a tremendous interest from overseas students and in due course of time we will improve in these parameters too.