MUMBAI: Nine of the 10 Indian Universities ranked 700th or above in the Quacquarelli Symonds World University Rankings 2016/17 have lost ground compared to last year in terms of both academic reputation and employer reputation. The only exception is IIT Madras which has broken into the global top 250 after a five-place rise.The Indian Institute of Science ( IISc ) Bangalore continues to retain top spot among the Indian institutes but had slipped out of the top 150 rankings to 152nd place this year. Last year, it was in the 147th spot. IIT Delhi has moved down from the 179th to the 185th place while IIT Bombay has gone from the 202nd rank to the 219th position this year.Other Indian institutes that feature in the thirteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings, compiled by the global higher education think tank, include IIT Madras (249), IIT Kanpur (302), IIT Kharagpur (313), IIT Roorkee (399), IIT Guwahati (481-490), University of Delhi (501-550), University of Calcutta (651-700). Banaras Hindu University, Panjab University, University of Mumbai and University of Pune all fall in the 701+ category.Four Indian institutions remain among the world’s top 100 for research impact, as measured by QS’s citations per faculty metric -- one fewer than in the 2015/16 instalment. However, IISC Bangalore is now ranked as the world’s 11th-best research institution according to the citations per faculty scoring. IIT Madras drops eight ranks to 101st for research impact.Ben Sowter, Head of Research at the QS Intelligence Unit, attributes India’s consistent falls to a number of factors. One such factor is India’s relatively low numbers of PhD-qualified researchers, which has an impact on the research productivity and impact of India’s universities. This problem is worsened by India hiring and attracting fewer PhD-qualified researchers from abroad; in fact, no Indian institution ranks above 700th for QS’s international faculty ratio metric.Nine of India’s universities also fall for faculty/student ratio. This metric measures the ability of universities to maintain class sizes conducive to high-quality teaching. This year’s findings suggest that Indian universities are still struggling to provide both the quantity of quality faculty members necessary to meet rapidly-increasing student demand.“This year’s rankings imply that levels of investment are determining who progresses and who regresses. Institutions in countries that provide high levels of targeted funding, whether from endowments or from the public purse, are rising,” said Sowter in a statement. On the other hand, Western European nations making or proposing cuts to public research spending are losing ground to their US and Asian counterparts.The performance of Indian institutions in QS’ recent regional Rankings suggest that India is gaining some ground on its regional competitors. “Though India is making substantial and commendable progress towards ensuring that more of its tertiary-age population have access to tertiary education, the global edition indicates that substantial challenges remain,” he added.In the overall rankings, MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology continues its run as the world’s best university for the fifth consecutive year. Stanford University displaces the University of Cambridge in the top three. This means that US institutions hold all top-three places for the first time since the inaugural rankings of 2004. Russia, China, South Korea, and Japan enjoy noteworthy improvements, while the United Kingdom, France, and Italy lose ground.