World University Rankings 2018: IISc ranked highest from India

The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) retained top position among Indian Universities in the Times World University Rankings 2018, but its position fell in global rankings compared to its last year position.  
Top 10 in Universities in World are Oxford University (1st, UK), Cambridge University (2nd, UK), California institute of Technology (3rd, US), Stanford University (4th, US), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (5th, US), Harvard University (6th, US), Princeton University (7th, US), Imperial College London (8th, UK), University of Chicago (9th, US), ETH-Zurich (10th, Switzerland).

Rankings of Indian Universities

A total of 30 Universities in India featured in this edition of the list, but none was in the top 100. 8 feature in top 500 and 3 in top 200 (IIT Delhi, IIT Bombay, and IISc Bangalore). In this year’s rankings, Indian Universities also slipped down from their previous ranking.
IISc slipped from the 201-250 band to the 251-300 one due to drop in its research influence score and research income. IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur, which were among best Indian institutions, slipped down from previous year’s position of the 401- 500 club to 501-600 band. IIT Bombay was placed in t351-400 club, same as in 2017 ranking and. IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee also retained their positions in 501-600 bracket.

Reasons for decline in ranking of Indian Universities

Indian institutes were lagging behind in research funding and citations and also on internationalisation front. Most of premier institutes in India cater to one particular stream such as engineering or management etc. which reduces volume and variety of research. Government policy strictly limits number of students from abroad who can study in India and prevents international scholars from being hired into long-term faculty positions.
If India desires to feature at a larger scale in these rankings, Indian Universities along with Indian education system need urgent revamp and there need to focus more on research, research funding and internationalization of Indian campuses

World University Rankings

These rankings are only global performance tables that judge research-intensive universities across all their core missions viz. teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
The thirteen point performance indicators calculating rankings are grouped in five areas: Teachings (learning environment; 30% weight), Research (volume, income and reputation; 30%), Citations (research influence; 30%), International outlook (staff, students and research; 7.5%) and Industry income (knowledge transfer; 2.5%).
Universities that do not teach undergraduates or those whose research output amounted to fewer than 1000 articles between 2012 and 2016, were excluded from the rankings.

Month: Current Affairs - September, 2017