THOOTHUKUDI: Over 10% of the Indian researchers identified by Stanford University in its world's top 2% scientists list in 2024 are from Tamil Nadu universities. Among the 5351 Indian scientists named in the list, around 537 are from the state.
The 2024 rankings, released on September 16 in collaboration with Elsevier Data repository, is an updated science-wide author database having classified scientists into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields. The research articles updated to the end of 2023 have been considered for this.
Accordingly, the Stanford University ranking list has included 2,23,152 scientists in the top 2% of the world, and among them, 5,351 are from Indian universities which was 4,635 in 2023.
An analysis of the list of top scientists reveals that 537 scientists from the universities of Tamil Nadu, which is more than 10% of the number of Indian scientists featured in the list.
The top institutes from Tamil Nadu named in the list are 62 scientists from the Indian Institute of Technology- Madras, 59 from Vellore Institute of Technology, 35 from SRM Institute of Science and Technology, 26 from Saveetha School of Engineering, 25 from Saveetha Dental College and Hosptials, 19 each from Bharathiyar university, National Institute of Technology Tiruchy, Saveetha Institute of Medical and technical sciences, and 18 from Anna university.
Five scientists affiliated with Manonmaniam Sundaranar University functioning in Tirunelveli, three scientists from St Xavier's College, Palayamkottai and one from VO Chindambaranar College in Thoothukudi.
Dr S Selvam of VO Chidambaranar College in Thoothukudi had made it into the world's top 2% scientists list for the fourth time since 2021. Selvam, who had published 103 research articles in the field of geology and environmental pollution in air-water sediments, has ranked 44,819 among the top scientists, bettering from the previous rank of 84,658, securing 633 citations and 14 h-index (excluding the self-citation index).
Speaking to TNIE, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University Vice Chancellor Chandrasekar said that both the state and central government provide assistance for the research programmes. "The professors have been nurtured to encourage students and research scholars to develop novel ideas in their respective fields, as researchers should have more citations to achieve higher ranks", he said.
Meanwhile, educationalists said that postgraduate students and research scholars need proper guidance to avail fellowships and grants provided by the governments. Similar to the push given by the state government for higher studies, research-oriented guidance programmes for research scholars should be curated accordingly, they added.
Researchers say that the introduction of the National Eligibility Test for Lectureship (NET) and Graduate Aptitude Test in Engineering (GATE) mandatory for PM fellowship, CM Fellowship, Maulana Asad fellowship for OBs, Rajiv fellowship for SC/ST, single woman fellowship, had made it tougher for the researchers to avail grants.