The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc) was the top-ranked Indian institution, in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) rankings, which were boycotted by several leading Indian Institutions of Technology (IITs).
No Indian institution could figure in the top 300 rankings, released on Wednesday, which was dominated by American and British universities.
The IIT at Ropar follows IISc in the list of institutions and is placed in the 351 to 400 bracket. IIT Indore is third-placed in the 401-500 category.
Several Indian universities find themselves in the 601-800 bracket. These include the Delhi University, Banaras Hindu University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Institute of Chemical and Technology (Mumbai), the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research (IISERs) at Pune and Kolkata, IITs at Gandhinagar and Hyderabad, and Indraprastha Institute of Information and Technology, Delhi.
Others in the 601 to 800 bracket are Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, King George’s Medical University (Lucknow), Thapar University (Patiala), Punjab University (Chandigarh), Savitribai Phule Pune University, and Mahatma Gandhi University.
Overall, the University of Oxford has been placed first followed by Stanford, Harvard, and the California Institute of Technology, which is in fourth place. Other universities in the top ten include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago.
{{/usCountry}}Overall, the University of Oxford has been placed first followed by Stanford, Harvard, and the California Institute of Technology, which is in fourth place. Other universities in the top ten include Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, University of California, Berkeley, Yale University, Princeton University, and the University of Chicago.
{{/usCountry}}Significantly, many top Indian institutions including the IITs at Delhi, Madras, and Bombay had not participated in the rankings after questioning the criteria adopted.
Meanwhile, in a statement, THE said Indian had overall 63 universities to qualify the rankings which were its highest ever number.
China’s Tsinghua University becomes the first-ever Asian university to break into the top 20 since the current methodology launched in 2011, the statement said.
Eighteen countries had were represented in the top 100. A total of 1,527 institutions qualified this year, a 9% increase from the 2020 rankings when 1,397 institutions qualified.
India recorded the highest number of new entrants (14) since 2020, more than any other country or region in the 2021 ranking. After India, the US (13), mainland China (10), Russia, Japan, and Iran (all 9), had maximum new entries.
The THE statement also said that since 2016, mainland China has gained 5 additional places in the top 200. It has also doubled its representation in the top 100 since last year, gaining 3 additional places (6 in total).
Phil Baty, Chief Knowledge Officer at THE, said that India’s record participation clearly highlights India’s desire to compete with the very best.
“India has previously suffered from a lack of internationalization within its institutions, which were not attracting as many global scholars, thinkers, or students as much as other countries. The recent announcement of the New Education Policy, the first of its kind since 1986, could be a great step in the right direction for India. With proposed comprehensive changes to Indian higher education, such as the approval for foreign universities to open campuses in India, the policy is an incredibly exciting turning point for the country,” he said.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2021 includes 1,527 universities across 93 countries and regions, standing as the largest and most diverse university rankings ever to date.
The universities are assessed on various criteria including indicators that measure an institution’s performance across teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook.