Only three Indian universities in top 200 of QS world rankings; IIT-B at 152

Top Indian institutions punch well above their weight in terms of research impact, with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bengaluru ranked second in the world in terms of citations per faculty, according to the QS World University Rankings for 2020.

In fact, IISc scored a perfect 100 in that indicator, while five Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) — in Roorkee, Kanpur, Delhi, Kharagpur and Guwahati — also stood in the top 100 ranks with scores ranging from 93.8 to 71.2.

However, Indian institutions have not managed to breach the top-100 barrier in any of the other indicators: academic reputation, teacher-student ratio, employer reputation, and the ratio of international students and faculty.

Score diluted

As a result, only three Indian institutions have managed to make it to the top 200 in the overall rankings, which take all these indicators into consideration, and which were released on Wednesday. IIT Bombay was ranked India’s best university for the second year in a row, snagging the 152nd rank globally. IIT Delhi was ranked at 182, while IISc’s rank was 184. Its perfect research impact score was diluted by a lower academic and employer reputation, and negligible numbers of international students and faculty.

There are a total of 23 Indian institutions in the top 1000, lower than the 24 institutions which made it last year. “Competition in Asia has been severe,” said a statement by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MoHRD), adding that measures were being taken to improve research productivity, but also to grow the international footprint of Indian institutions.

Private universities

Only five of the Indian institutions on the list are privately funded. Manipal Academy of Higher Education, which falls within the 701-750 ranking band, is the top private university in the country. The O.P. Jindal Global University, founded in 2009, is the only new entrant in the list this year, ranking in the 751-800 band.

While government-funded institutions, especially the IITs, scored high in terms of citations per faculty, it was a different story for the private universities. Except for the Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani, it was other factors such as a high teacher-student ratio, and international faculty and student populations that propelled them to the top. “Teaching quality is typically cited by students as the metric of highest importance to them when comparing institutions using a ranking,” said the QS Rankings note on methodology, adding that teacher-student ratio is being used as a proxy metric for teaching quality.