Times higher education to add India-specific parameters to ranking

Indian institutions could improve their scores dramatically in Times Higher Education’s globally cited World University Rankings as the British magazine has agreed to develop and include India-specific parameters for assessment from the next time.

Confirming the development, Higher Education Secretary Ashok Thakur said that the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) had asked all groupings of domestic institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and central universities to appoint a nodal person to coordinate with Times Higher Education to develop India-specific parameters.

Domestic institutions have long argued that the rankings, which give 55% weightage to research indicators and 30% to teaching environment including 15% to the faculty, do not take into account extenuating “Indian circumstances”.

No Indian institution has yet made it to the top 100 in the rankings, in which Panjab University is the highest ranked domestic institution clubbed in the group of universities ranked 226-250. India’s premier engineering colleges, the Indian Institutes of Technology, made it to the list last year, with the IITs from Delhi, Kanpur, Kharagpur and Roorkee all ranked in the group of institutions between 351 and 400. The government has been concerned over the poor performance of domestic institutions in international rankings and keen to ensure that the rankings take India-specific parameters on board. 

There is little clarity on what exactly constitutes “Indian circumstances” except the constitutionally mandated reservation quotas (15% for scheduled castes, 7.5% for scheduled tribes and 27% for other backward classes) and the cross-cutting quota for physically-challenged persons. But issues including intake of foreign students, foreign faculty, marketing and branding of institutions will be addressed while designing India-specific parameters for assessment.

Academics and analysts argue that it is unfair to compare India’s top institutions with American or other western institutions. Centrally-funded institutions such as the IITs, which have a national mandate, cannot admit foreign students at the undergraduate level, and restrictions on assistantships for international students make it difficult to attract foreign students at the PhD level.

None of India’s publicly-funded higher education institution can hire foreign nationals as regular faculty members since guidelines prohibit hiring of foreigners for jobs with salaries less than $25,000 a year. Moreover, even at higher salaries, international faculty can only be brought in on contract for up to five years.

The MHRD had also approached the widely respected Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) Rankings to develop India-specific parameters for assessment.

Source: The Economic Times, January 6, 2014

Five Indian universities in top 400 world’s best universities – IIT-Kanpur disputes findings

Five Indian institutions found a place in the top 400 of the world’s best universities in 2013, improving their tally from the previous year, according to the UK-based Times Higher Education World University Rankings report published on Wednesday.

India added three institutions to the top 400 list, according to the report. Panjab University emerged as the top-ranked Indian institution and was placed between 226 and 250 in the global rankings. The report didn’t give a specific ranking. The other four Indian institutions in the list are the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi; IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee, ranked in the 351-400 bracket.

“These results should be encouraging for India: while no Indian institution makes the top 200, one player new to the rankings, Panjab University, is close in the 226-250 group. Moreover, India now has five representatives in the top 400—a sign of growing commitment to the global rankings,” said Phil Baty, Editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Last year two Indian institutions—IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee—were in the top 400 ranks.

IIT-Kanpur Director Indranil Manna disputed the findings, claiming that the technology institute had not participated in the rankings. “Where are these agencies getting data from. They did not come to our campus, we have not participated. So the ranking is based on unofficial and unverified data,” said Manna.

Traditionally, the IITs have never been part of any rankings, Manna said. “There are some dozen agencies doing rankings. They have their own business interest and I have no problem with that but you need official data. Who is giving them data to rank us?” The IITs have a national mandate and do not have varied disciplines like many foreign universities, Manna said.

Besides, funding to the IITs can’t be compared with institutions such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the IITs don’t have enough foreign students and teachers, he said. “So these are not apple-to-apple comparisons.”

The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) has, however, set up a panel to suggest ways to improve the rankings of top Indian institutes. Manna is a member of the committee.

Overall, California Institute of Technology retained its number one position in the rankings for the third consecutive year, Harvard University rose to second place from fourth, sharing the position with the UK’s University of Oxford. Stanford University slipped from joint second to fourth. MIT was ranked fifth in the survey, Princeton University sixth, University of Cambridge seventh, University of California, Berkeley eighth, University of Chicago ninth and Imperial College, London tenth

The US led the comparison among 26 countries, with 77 of its institutes in the top 200 rankings. Europe fared badly this year, the ranking agency said in a statement. Germany’s University of Munich dropped out of the top 50. Institutions from Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Ireland and Austria also performed poorly, it said.

The UK remains Europe’s strongest representative, with 31 universities in the top 200. The Netherlands has 12 in the top 200 rankings, followed by Germany with 10, France with eight, Switzerland with seven and Belgium with five.

Europe’s difficulties contrast with progress for most leading East Asian universities, the study said. Japan’s University of Tokyo maintained its status as Asia’s number one institution, moving up four places to 23rd in the list.

The National University of Singapore (NUS) held on to the second position in the region with an overall 26th ranking, overtaking Australia’s University of Melbourne.

Source: Mint, October 3, 2013

Panjab University steals a march over IITs in global rankings

Which is the topmost institution of higher education in the country? Before you mention one of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT), here’s a surprise. The answer is Panjab University, according to the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

While Panjab University, a new entrant, is placed at 226 among 400 institutions worldwide, IIT-Kharagpur has slipped from 226 to 250 and IIT-Roorkee is placed in the 351-400 band. The two other new entrants are IIT-Delhi and IIT-Kanpur, both in the 351-400 group.

“India increases its representation in the world rankings with five world top 400 universities. No Indian university makes the top 200, but one new entrant is close to the elite group,” says a press statement issued by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The improvement in rankings for Indian universities has come about as they “co-operated with Thomson Reuters, providing their data for analysis”. Thomson Reuters collects, analyses and verifies data, independently of Times Higher Education, which publishes the results. Participation in the rankings is voluntary and free of charge. Phil Baty, Editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, says the results should be encouraging for India which now has five representatives in the top 400 – a sign of growing commitment to the global rankings, a step towards improved quality.

Overall, California Institute of Technology holds on to the world number one spot for the third consecutive year, while Harvard University tied with Oxford regains second place, pushing Stanford University to fourth. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (fifth), Princeton University (sixth), the University of Cambridge (seventh), University of California, Berkeley (up one place to eighth), the University of Chicago (up one place to ninth) and Imperial College London (down two places to 10th) complete the top 10.

Top universities in Germany, France, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Russia, Belgium, the Republic of Ireland and Austria have all fallen while the top institutions in China, South Korea, Singapore and Japan have made gains. The US remains dominant with seven institutions in the world top 10 and 77 in the top 200 (one more than last year). London boasts four top-40 universities (up from three), more than any other city.

The increased representation for India in the rankings follows a two-day National Policy Dialogue in May on international rankings, when representatives of Times Higher Education were invited to meet senior university leaders by the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) and the Planning Commission. At the meeting in New Delhi, Ashok Thakur, secretary of the ministry’s department of higher education, said Indian institutions must no longer hide behind the “excuse” that the global ranking metrics and indicators were not suited to them. “We must play the same game that the rest of the world is playing,” he said. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings use 13 separate performance indicators to examine a university’s strengths against all its core missions: Teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

Europe has generally fared badly this year. While the UK’s number one, Oxford, holds on to the second place in the rankings, across the board the continent’s top institutions have lost ground. ETH Zürich, the world number one outside the US and the UK, slipped two places to 14th; Germany’s University of Munich fell out of the top 50; and it is a similar tale of woe for Belgium, France, the Netherlands, the Republic of Ireland and Austria.

In another set of rankings published last month by QS World University, IIT-Delhi figured at 222, dropping from 212 in 2012. As part of comprehensive global reviews, the 800-strong annual ranking included 11 Indian institutions in all, with the IITs leading the charge — IIT-Bombay at 233, IIT-Kanpur at 295, IIT-Madras at 313 and IIT-Kharagpur at 346.

In the list of the top 50 universties in Asia, IIT-Bombay led the fall, dropping five notches to 39th position from 34th last year. While IIT-Delhi fell two places to the 38th position against 36th last year, IIT-Madras fell four positions to rank at 49 against 45 last year.

Source: Business Standard, October 3, 2013

IITs plan to increase student intake by 60%

The Council of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on Monday decided to increase the number of students admitted to the prestigious engineering schools by 60%, market brand IIT in India and elsewhere, and engage with global ranking agencies to improve the standing of the schools. At the same time, the council, the apex decision making body of the 16 IITs, signalled that the schools would remain independent of government interference.

The decisions come on the heels of Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd’s (QS) ranking of the world’s top 200 universities which showed not a single Indian institution in the list. A separate list of the top 200 Asian institutions had 11 Indian entities, with three in the top 50. IIT-Delhi was at 38, IIT-Bombay at 39, and IIT-Madras 49.

The Council, whose members include all IIT directors, chairmen of their board of governors’ chairmen, some industrialists and the human resource development (HRD) minister, decided that the IITs would not be reviewed by the National Accreditation Board (NAB) and that the directors of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) would have no say in the appointment of IIT directors any more—both moves designed to reiterate and reinforce the autonomy of the schools.

“The council decided that since IITs are brands, their internal review will be given to NAB and it will be accepted as accreditation. NAB won’t be able to sent its team to assess the IITs,” M.M. Pallam Raju, the HRD minister, told reporters in New Delhi.

NAB accreditation is essential for India to be part of the Washington Accord that allows smooth student mobility from Indian engineering institutes to foreign institutes and vice-versa. It also makes Indian engineering degrees equivalent to foreign ones, helps institutes foster better ties in research, curricula and sharing of resources, and also improves a country’s image in the higher education league table.

The decision to increase the number of students in various streams, from average 7,500 per institution to 12,000, over a period of time, is certain to bring cheer to thousands of students who seek admission to the prestigious schools, say analysts. “It will also improve their (the IITs’) earnings (from fees) as well as from non-plan grants from the government,” said Alok Mishra, a director at the HRD ministry. The council said the increase would first happen in the seven older IITs at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kharagpur, Kanpur, Guwahati and Roorkee.

Although recognized around the world for the quality of its graduates, the IITs haven’t really focused on brand-building, said the minister. “Branding and marketing is important for any institute and IITs have not done this by themselves. Now all IITs will devise a way on how to improve their brand equity,” said Raju. Officials in the HRD ministry said the IITs could together even appoint a chief marketing officer to head this initiative.

The Council also decided that the IITs would form a committee comprising administrators and members of the alumni network to engage with ranking agencies such as the UK-based Quacquarelli Symonds and Times Higher Education ranking. “They have to give complete details of their programs, research and curricula. If IITs give everything up-to-date their ranking can improve by 50%,” said a HRD ministry official.

The Council did not decide to hike tuition fees as suggested by a committee headed by the scientist Anil Kakodkar that proposed charging under-graduate students Rs. 250,000 a year. The IITs had increased fees from Rs. 50,000 to Rs. 90,000 a year in January. The government spends about Rs. 225,000 on each IIT student every year. “It’s up to the IITs now (to consider a revision),” Raju said.

The Council did not discuss the contentious two-tier admission process to the IITs that is currently before the courts.

Source: Mint, September 17, 2013

India to lobby foreign agencies for improving university rankings

India is set to lobby international ranking agencies and seek their expertise on improving the poor showing of the country’s higher educational institutes in the global league tables. The Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the Planning Commission consider the absence of the country’s best institutions from the top 200 an embarrassment, especially for a country that’s supposed to be a knowledge economy.

As a first step, the MHRD and the plan panel will lobby London-based Times Higher Education (THE), which publishes the World University Rankings every year. “You can call it a lobby or dialogue or engagement, but we want to engage with THE and other ranking agencies to improve our standing,” said a MHRD official, who did not want to be named.

In the THE World University Rankings of 2012-13, there were only three Indian institutes in the top 400 and the best of them was the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) at Kharagpur, which was at 226-250. The other two were IIT-Bombay and IIT-Roorkee. In the Academic Ranking of World Universities conducted by China’s Shanghai Jiao Tong University, only the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, figured in the top 500.

President Pranab Mukherjee lamented this state of affairs on 21 March. “This position is not at all acceptable,” he said. “This calls for serious introspection.”

“There is no point being dismissive about ranking. Instead we must understand why we are not there. While learning from them, we shall also present our case,” another government official said, also requesting anonymity. “So, their view about our institutions must be based on complete information.”

The dialogue with THE is not confined to MHRD controlled institutions alone, said Pawan Agarwal, Higher Education Advisor to the plan panel. “We are taking along other departments from the ministry of health and agriculture,” he said.

The MHRD says better ranking is essential to woo more research, faculty members and foreign students to Indian universities. Around 10,000 foreign students are pursuing higher education in India, including several hundreds who have come through various scholarship schemes, ministry data show. India is already engaged in seeking more students from Africa to pursue their doctoral research at institutions in the country. “The number can be multiplied, if we can showcase our universities through a credible ranking agency,” said the second official.

Phil Baty, editor of the THE World University Rankings said that its engagement with India is three fold—increasing awareness about ranking, evaluations and global benchmarking; improving relationships with Indian universities; and helping institutes recognize their weaknesses besides assisting them in developing a strategy to overcome this. “We are not coming here for a quick buck but for a long-term relationship,” Baty said. “Over a period of time (we can move) to value relationship. As a knowledge economy, India is important for us.”

Around a dozen institutes participate in the THE rankings, a number that Baty wants to raise to 30 in the next few years. He said that the research and the visibility of such work done by Indian institutes were “patchy”. According to official data, India’s research output accounted for a 2.78% share of global publications in 2006-10. In the same period, China’s share was 12.75% while that of the US was 20.7%.

Ranking organizations see India as a potential market, more so as the country’s education sector is opening up and a number of leading business houses are entering the space, said the first government official cited above. More than 100 institutes, including IITs, have been invited to participate in the policy dialogue on Thursday.

“We have some interaction with Shanghai Jiao Tong University and we could explore more. Besides, we can engage with QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Rankings authorities too,” said the official. QS is a UK-based ranking agency.

Source: Mint, May 23, 2013

Harvard, MIT among top world varsity rankings; Indian institutions lag

Harvard leads the pack of top 100 institutions in the 2013 World Reputation Rankings by Times Higher Education Magazine. No Indian university has made it to the list. But if the rankings were to list the top 200, IISc Bangalore, would be 130th. IIT-Bombay would be in 192nd place.

The other three BRIC nations, Brazil, Russia and China, are on the list, though. The rankings are based on the largest worldwide invitation-only survey of academic opinion, with the 2013 results culled out of 16,639 responses from senior published academics.

Indian Scene
In its latest World Reputation Rankings for 2013, Times Higher Education magazine, (THE) UK, for the first time, has released an India top-10 list. According to THE India Reputation Rankings, Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore, is in the first position, followed by IIT-Bombay, All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), IIT-Kanpur and IIT-Delhi respectively. The University of Delhi takes the sixth place — the first full-fledged university on the list.

The reputation rankings, a spin-off of the annual THE World University Rankings, are based on subjective, but expert judgement of senior, published academics. As to why an India-specific ranking, Phil Baty, editor, THE Rankings, in an exclusive interview to The Times of India, says that the world of higher education is interested in the country’s development, and its huge potential, and there is a strong demand from within India for data, which helps people to map the rapidly changing higher education landscape. IIT-Madras (7), IIT-Kharagpur (8), Aligarh Muslim University (9) and University of Hyderabad (10) are the other names, which feature in the list.

However, globally, not a single Indian institution has made it to the top 100 of the ‘World Reputation Rankings 2013.’ While Harvard University tops the list, it is followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Cambridge, University of Oxford, University of California, Berkeley and Stanford University.

THE revealed that if the rankings were to list more than top-100, IISc, Bangalore would be 130th, IIT-Bombay in the 192nd place, with all other Indian institutions falling outside the global top-200.

How is India faring vis-a-vis the global education market? Baty points out that India needs to improve research capacity in universities, with better co-ordination of university research and industrial research, besides addressing the issue of low spending per student.”As a country with a rapidly growing economy and a fine tradition of scholarship, it is a cause for concern that India does not have institutions that are sufficiently highly regarded by international scholars that they feature among the global top 100,” said Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education Rankings, in a statement.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2012-2013 powered by Thomson Reuters are the only global university performance tables to judge world class universities across all of their core missions – teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The top universities rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparisons available, which are trusted by students, academics, university leaders, industry and governments.

For the full rankings, visit www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings.

Source: The Economic Times & The Times of India, March 5, 2013

Investment crucial for establishing world-class universities: THE

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE WUR) was released last week. Phil Baty, editor, THE WUR, talks about the key findings.

What do you feel has caused Harvard Universitys slip after eight years to the second position and California Institute of Technology bagging the number one position?
The differences at the peak of the table are small. California Institute of Technology has made it to number one this year, because it performed almost faultlessly across all indicators, marginally improving on Harvard with regards to research volume, income and reputation, and research influence. The most substantial influence on California Institute of Technology’s success this year has been the income it attracts from industry. Indeed, with the race to the top being so neck-and-neck, simple factors can become huge differentiators. In this instance, money has made all the difference.

India is represented in the bubbling under section by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay. Do you think India possesses the potential to make rapid advances?
If the Indian government stays committed to higher education, with a focus on funding,research and teaching all things that count in the THE WUR, I see no reason why we won’t see an Indian institution in the top 200 in the very near future. We are also now seeing a consistently increasing number of academic publications from India each year, so before too long we expect to see more Indian institutions in the rankings.

What is it about India that makes it lag behind in almost all world university rankings, while smaller and developing nations are coming up in the list?
One thing that could be said to be holding India back is that its traditional institutions, such as the University of Mumbai, are too large some with half a million students on their campuses and in their affiliated undergraduate colleges. This does not allow for effective management and focus. Indian universities also seem to be suffering from having been under-funded for decades and with no formal evaluation system for academic staff – where people are promoted on the basis of seniority – it is taking a while for the recently renewed efforts to improve India’s higher education system to show effect in real terms.

Does this year’s ranking establish any new trend that you would like to mention?
In today’s world of higher education, it seems it is all about money. Indeed, if we look at the US it is clear that this year its institutions have suffered the effects of the global financial crisis. As funding cuts start to kick in, some of the prestigious public US institutions such as Berkeley, University of California, Los Angeles and UC San Diego have all witnessed a drop in real terms. In short, investment is crucial in order to produce world-class universities.

Source: Education Times (The Times of India), October 10, 2011

No Indian university in world’s top 200

Not a single Indian university — not even the celebrated IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) and IIMs (Indian Institutes of Management) — figure in the Times Higher Education magazine’s ranking of the world’s top 200 universities, with American varsities dominating the list.

US institutions have grabbed seven spots in the top 10 despite President Barack Obama warning American students of stiff competition from their counterparts in India and China. Three British universities, Oxford, Cambridge and Imperial College London, continue to make the cut with a university in China also making the grade. The magazine places 75 US universities in the top 200. UK has 32 universities in the list, followed by Germany (12), the Netherlands (12) and Canada (9).

The list of top 200 includes universities in Taiwan, Brazil, Singapore, South Africa and China, but this year repeats earlier trends about India — no Indian university is deemed good enough to be included in the elite list, inspite of India claiming to have substantially increased its spending on higher education in recent years.

The top 10 in the list of 200 universities are: California Institute of Technology, Harvard University, Stanford University, University of Oxford, Princeton University, University of Cambridge, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Imperial College London, University of Chicago and the University of California, Berkeley.

Britain’s Universities Minister David Willetts said the list showed that relative to its size, the UK’s university system was the “world’s best-performing”. “With as many as seven million students predicted to be studying outside their home country within the next few years, and with international research collaboration at the top of government agendas, these world university rankings are more important than ever,” said Ann Mroz, editor of Times Higher Education.

Source: The Indian Express, October 7, 2011

>Indian Institute of Science in world list of 100 most reputed

>The Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore has emerged the only Indian academic institution figuring in the world’s 100 most reputed universities, according to the Times Higher Education (THE) Rankings released on Friday.

The first-ever reputation based THE rankings has predictably found Harvard at the top, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), University of Cambridge and the University of California Berkeley. Two Chinese universities — Tsinghua University (35) and Peking University (43) — also figure on the list.

The rankings are most significant for India because though the IISc is the country’s only institution in the list, it’s far better than performance-based rankings of Indian institutions in recent years. “This offers us a ray of hope because it suggests while the IISc and other top institutions need to improve performance, marketing that performance may be taken care of already,” a Indian education policy maker said.

Source: Hindustan Times, March 12, 2011

>World’s top 100 universities: Reputations ranked by Times Higher Education

>The US boasts the most reputable universities in the world according to a new global reputation ranking out today. The list published today by the Times Higher Education, is the first of its kind looking solely at the reputations of institutions for teaching and research. Harvard comes top closely followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) beating both Oxford and Cambridge universities.

The US dominates with seven universities in the top ten and a massive 45 in the total rankings. Taking 12 of the places in the top 100, the UK is second to the US with Cambridge university beating Oxford. Imperial College, University College London (UCL), London School of Economics and Edinburgh University also make the top 50.

The rankings based on a survey of 13,388 academics over 131 countries is the largest evaluation of academic reputation and is used partly used in indicators for compiling the well-known Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

The rankings also show Japan beating Canada, Australia and Germany with the flagship, University of Tokyo, at eighth place making it the only other nation apart from the US and UK to feature in the top ten.

With university fees rocketing and more applicants fighting for places, university reputation is set to be an even bigger focus for prospective students. Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, said: “In an ever more competitive global market for students, academics and university administrators a university’s reputation for academic excellence is crucial.”

Source: The Guardian, March 12, 2011