The Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay, is India’s highest ranked university among top 200 global universities, with Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru, and IIT Delhi also figuring in the 200-bracket, according to the QS World University Rankings.
The rankings for 2021 are based on six indicators: academic reputation, employer reputation, citations per faculty, faculty/student ratio, international faculty ratio and international student ratio, compilers of the rankings said.
IIT Bombay is ranked 172nd, while IISc is 185th and IIT Delhi 193rd. Overall, 21 Indian higher education institutions figure in the top 1000. India’s best research university is IISc, which received a perfect 100/100 on the ‘citations per faculty’ indicator.
Other IITs in the top 500 are: Madras (275), Kharagpur (314), Kanpur (350), Roorkee (383) and Guwahati (470).
The compilers said that as a group, Indian higher education performs most strongly in measure of research quality, though its universities are failing to increase academic standing, teaching capacity, and levels of internationalisation at the same rate as global competitors.
Ben Sowter of QS said: “Though India’s universities have dropped as a group this year, this is frequently because of other universities across the world making increasingly intense efforts to enhance their educational offerings”.
{{/usCountry}}Ben Sowter of QS said: “Though India’s universities have dropped as a group this year, this is frequently because of other universities across the world making increasingly intense efforts to enhance their educational offerings”.
{{/usCountry}}“To regain lost ground, Indian higher education must find ways of increasing teaching capacity, and of attracting more talented students and faculty across the world to study in India. There is plenty of potential, and there are pockets of excellence, within the Indian system,” he added.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology retains its position as the world’s best university, while the top three institutions remain American: MIT is followed by Stanford University (2nd) and Harvard University (3rd).