NEW DELHI: Forty-one Indian universities, seven more than last year, have made it to the QS World University Rankings 2023, but none figures in the global top 150. Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has grabbed the highest rank at 155, leaving behind the coveted IITs. Delhi University is the only non-professional institution in the academic hall of fame, ranked below 520.
The top-ranking IISc Bangalore - one of the eight public Institutes of Eminence (IoE) - which moved up 31 places since last year, secured the first spot among the Indian institutions, is followed by IIT-Bombay and Delhi, bagging the 172nd and 174th positions, respectively.
Apart from IISc at 155, IIT-Bombay (IIT-B) and IIT-Delhi (IIT-D), which have risen five and 11 places to rank 172 and 174 respectively, are the only other Indian institutes in the global league of top 200, in continuation of a trend since 2017.
The number of Indian institutes among the top 1,000 globally has risen to 27 from 22.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in a tweet, said, “41 Indian universities have featured in the QS World University Rankings 2023. My compliments to all the universities.” He congratulated IISc, Bangalore, IIT-B and IIT-D for their academic excellence and for consistently being among the global league of top 200.
“Furthermore, IISc Bengaluru is the fastest rising South Asian university among the QS World University Rankings top-200,” said a QS statement.
No Indian university besides IISc Bangalore, IIT-B and IIT-D has made it to QS’ top 200 in the last four years. Apart from IISc, eight IITs - Delhi, Bombay, Madras (250), Kanpur (264), Kharagpur (270), Roorkee (369), Guwahati (384), and Indore (396) - are ranked among the top 500 globally.
India has also come out strongly on the research front, with IISc emerging number one globally in the ‘citations per faculty’ (CpF) indicator, which higher education analyst Quacquarelli Symonds uses to evaluate the impact of research produced by universities.
According to the CpF indicator, when universities are adjusted for faculty size, IISc Bengaluru is the world’s top research university, achieving a perfect score of 100/100 for this metric.
IIT Guwahati (37th for CpF), IIT Roorkee (47th for CpF) and the new entry University of Madras (48th for CpF) are also global top-50 research institutions.
“This edition of the rankings reflects the excellent work that several Indian universities are doing to improve their research footprint, with positive consequences for their reputation on the global stage,” said Ben Sowter, senior vice president at QS. “Conversely, our dataset also suggests that the Indian higher education sector still struggles to provide adequate teaching capacity. Further expansion of provision – both within universities and across the sector as a whole – will be necessary if India is to continue reaching new heights'', he noted.
The top three positions this year are bagged by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for the eleventh consecutive year, while University of Cambridge has risen to the second place, and Stanford University remains in the third position.