In a further drop in its performance over the years, Panjab University (PU) has been ranked 197th in the 2022 Times Higher Education (THE) Asia University Rankings released on Wednesday.
After being ranked 114th in the list in 2018, PU slipped to the 136th spot in 2019. Over the next two years, its ranking worsened even more as it was placed 149th in 2020 and 175th in 2021.
Securing the 42nd position, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) continued to be the best institute in the country. Other Indian institutes to feature among the Top 100 were JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research, which debuted at the 65th place, followed by Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Ropar at 68th spot and IIT Indore at 87th.
Despite its continuous dip in the Times rankings, PU has been placed higher than Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Anna University and University of Delhi, that were placed in the 201-250 bracket.
The varsity’s overall score has also witnessed a slight increase from 34 in 2021 to 34.9 in 2022. In citations, a major component, PU has scored 52.6 this year compared to 52.9 last year, while its score in industry income is 35.4, up from 34.7 last year. Its score in teaching also increased from 34.7 to 39.2.
{{/usCountry}}The varsity’s overall score has also witnessed a slight increase from 34 in 2021 to 34.9 in 2022. In citations, a major component, PU has scored 52.6 this year compared to 52.9 last year, while its score in industry income is 35.4, up from 34.7 last year. Its score in teaching also increased from 34.7 to 39.2.
{{/usCountry}}However, PU’s score in research decreased from 18.8 to 18.2. The number of students per faculty dropped to 15, which was 20.3 last year.
Refusing to comment, director of PU’s internal quality assurance cell (IQAC), Sanjeev Sharma said they will first analyse the ranking on Thursday.
Laying focus on bettering the citations score, which will help PU improve its rankings, a varsity professor, not wishing to be named, said, “Teachers should work on improving the quality of the research publications, fit for notable journals. Citations will increase only with higher-quality publications, which have a higher chance of being cited than the average ones.”