The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai has achieved its highest rank ever, breaking into the world’s top 150 universities in the latest edition of the QS World University Ranking released late Tuesday night. This marks the first time in eight years that an Indian higher education institution has made it to the top 150 list, with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore previously achieving this feat in 2016 with a ranking of 147.
IIT Bombay has made a remarkable leap, climbing 23 positions to secure the 149th rank globally in this year’s edition of the rankings. However, the list has also seen significant fluctuations, with IISc falling 70 positions from 155th rank to 225. It now stands as the third-highest ranked Indian institution, compared to being the best Indian institution last year. Similarly, IIT Delhi fell from 174 to 197, IIT Kanpur from 264 to 278 and IIT Madras from 250 to 285, among others.
The UK-based ranking agency, QS Quacquarelli Symonds, has partly attributed the fluctuation to a revision of the assessment parameters this year. It introduced three new indicators — sustainability, employment outcomes, and international research network, each carrying a weightage of 5 per cent.
To accommodate the three new indicators, QS made adjustments to the importance assigned to other parameters. The weightage given to the academic reputation indicator has been lowered from 40 per cent to 30 per cent. Similarly, the emphasis on faculty student ratio has also been decreased from 15% to 10% and the significance attributed to the employer reputation indicator has been increased from 10% to 15%.
The reduction in emphasis on the faculty-student ratio (FSR) has had a negative impact on institutions such as IISC which is primarily a research-focused institution with lower teaching load compared to the IITs. IISc had been performing well on the FSR indicator. Due to the decreased weightage, its ranking has been affected. However, according to a QS spokesperson this is not the only factor that led to IISc’s fall in rankings.
“IISc has seen drops in several indicators this year in addition to faculty student ratio, and particularly those that focus on global engagement (international students’ ratio, international faculty ratio, international research network). There has also been a drop in citations per faculty and in employer reputation,” the spokesperson told this newspaper.
Among the parameters, IIT Bombay has demonstrated excellence in employment reputation and citation per faculty. Notably, there has been a remarkable improvement in citation per faculty, with the score rising from 55.1 last year to an impressive 73.1 this year.
Over the past five years, it has improved its employer reputation ranking from 102nd to 69th position and its citations per faculty rank from 226th to 133rd.
According to Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director, IIT Bombay, the research productivity of the institute received a boost during the pandemic lockdown, resulting in numerous research papers published in high-impact journals that are now being cited, contributing to the improved ranking.
“IIT Bombay produced 15,905 academic papers from 2018 to 2022, generating 143,800 citations. It has recorded a research growth of some 17% over this period. For average citations per faculty, they sit at nearly four times the global median – an impressive feat by any standard… Its research output is split fairly evenly between Engineering & Technology and Natural Sciences. Its highly collaborative work across Astrophysics has generated particular interest, according to citations generated,” Andrew Mac Farlane, QS’ senior research manager, told The Indian Express.
“IIT Bombay’s research quality is further demonstrated by the fact that 30% of its output is published in the top 10% of academic journals by impact. This figure surpasses the global average by 6% and is a staggering 15% higher than the average among Indian institutions,” Mac Farlane said, adding that the institute is yet to show the same level of improvement in our internationalisation metrics (foreign students and foreign faculty).
On the gains made in the employment reputation parameter, Chaudhari said, “Our employment and employer reputation score is above 82 points which is higher than international universities like Johns Hopkins, CMU, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and Purdue University. This indicates that IIT Bombay is excelling in its mission of creating highly skilled manpower, who are now leading professionals in global companies.”
With 45 universities ranked this year, India is the seventh most represented country globally and the third in Asia trailing only Japan (52 universities) and China (Mainland) (71 universities). India has two more entries in the world’s top 500 universities with the University of Delhi (ranked 407th) and Anna University (ranked 427th) making their debut in this tier. Four new Indian universities: University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Chitkara University, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, and the Indian Statistical Institute have been ranked this year.
Overall, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US topped the World University Ranking for the twelfth consecutive time this year, followed closely by UK’s Cambridge University and Oxford University. Notably, National University of Singapore (NUS) moved up three positions from Rank 11 last year to become the first Asian university to break into the top 10 club.
Three Australian universities made significant gains to enter the top 20. The University of Melbourne, ranked 14th (a first for any Australian institution), advanced by 19 positions, while the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney both moved up by 26 and 22 ranks, respectively, to be tied at the 19th position.
Overall, American universities made up half of the top 20 institutions in the world, with UC Berkeley, after a long absence, making a comeback to the best 10 list this time. ETH Zurich retained its title as the best university in Europe for the sixteenth year in a row.
Courtesy : The Indian Express
