Springing a surprise on some of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Tamil Nadu-based Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences and Indian School of Mines (ISM) University, Dhanbad debuted as India's two best in the latest QS World University Rankings by Subject 2022.
The twelfth edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject saw the new entrants Saveetha and ISM break into global top-100 for dentistry and mineral & mining engineering subjects, respectively.
Similarly, the National Institute of Pharmaceutical Education and Research (NIPER) Mohali made the highest jump in rankings by being placed at 44th global rank in pharmacy & pharmacology subject, up by over 100 places from the 151-200 band in the previous edition.
On the other hand, after four and a half years since inception of the country's 'Institutes of Eminence' scheme, the recognised universities gained moderate ground on the global stage in QS World University Rankings by Subject.
Led by IIT Madras which ranked 30th for petroleum engineering, four Institutes of Eminence achieved top-50 ranks even as IIT Madras became India’s highest-ranking public Institute of Eminence.
The mineral & mining engineering emerged as India’s best subject with two public Institutes of Eminence making it into the top-50 including IIT Kharagpur (37) and IIT Bombay (39). For the development studies subject, the University of Delhi was ranked at 41st place while the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) retained its top-100 ranks for Materials Science (76) and Chemistry (81) while breaking into the top-100 for physics & astronomy (91) and mechanical engineering (98).
The IIT Delhi was ranked in 14 subject tables even as it maintained its top-100 ranks in civil & structural engineering (51-100), electrical & electronic engineering (56), computer science (65), and mechanical engineering (64). In the business & management subjects, Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) Bangalore and Ahmedabad bagged top-100 ranks.
Moreover, public Institutes of Eminence remained significantly better-represented in the QS World University Rankings than private ones.
QS also found that India remained at the forefront of global environmental science research. For instance, data from QS’s research partners at Elsevier, which contributes to the QS World University Rankings by Subject, indicates that in 2021 India ranked fifth in terms of its research footprint in this field—behind only Germany, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. In this backdrop, eight Indian universities are featured in QS’s Environmental Sciences 2022 ranking, with IIT Bombay breaking into the top 150 and IIT Kharagpur stable in the 151-200 band. The two new entries in this discipline are Banaras Hindu University (401-450) and Anna University (451-460).
Regionally, India is the fourth-best represented higher education system for the number of entries, and it is joint-fifth for the number of top-200 entries.
Commenting on India's performance, QS Research Director, Ben Sowter, said that one of the biggest challenges faced by India is educational in terms of providing high-quality tertiary education in the face of exploding demand, as recognized by 2020’s National Education Policy (NEP), which set the ambitious target of a 50 per cent gross enrolment ratio by 2035.
"Therefore, it should provide some reassurance that the number of Indian programs featuring across our 51 subject rankings has increased this year—from 233 to 274—where it had been decreasing previously. However, QS also notes that several programs at India’s privately run Institutes of Eminence have made progress this year, demonstrating the positive role that well-regulated private provision can have in enhancing India’s higher education sector," Sowter added.
Compiled by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the rankings provide an independent comparative analysis of the performance of 15,200 individual university programs taken by students at 1543 universities which can be found in 88 locations across the world, across 51 academic disciplines and five broad faculty areas. They are part of the annual QS World University Rankings portfolio, which was consulted over 147 million times in 2021, and covered 96,000 times by media and institutions.
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