QS WORLD UNIVERSITY RANKINGS 2015 - 16 - INDIAN UNIVERSITIES AMONG WORLD'S TOP 200
|
|
|
|
Since its launch in 2004,
the QS World University Rankings remains a ma jor news event around the
world. And they matter enormously to academics, university managers,
students, alumni and other key groups in higher education. As with
any ranking, the big names near the top are the first to attract
attention. We find that the Massachusetts Institute of Technology is
still the world's top university. It has near-perfect scores on five of
our six measures, but falters on our indicator for international
students where it gains a mere 95.5 out of a possible 100. It is 62nd in
the world on this measure. In second place is Harvard, which also
performs extremely well in all the indicators, except for the proportion
of international students. The top 20 we see here is dominated as usual
by an array of household-name institutions in the US and the UK. US
universities take 10 top-20 places and the UK five. Two of the others
are in Switzerland, two in Singapore and one in Australia.
There is bound to be close attention to the effects of this year's major improvement to the rankings, the faculty-level normalisation of our citations count. The intention is to counteract the ferocious publish-or-perish culture of the biomedical field, and in the natural sciences, by equalising the effect of citations in the major areas of academic life.
For this year, its effects can be seen most starkly in the improved standing of institutions with a strong emphasis on the social sciences and the arts and humanities. Most striking is the rise of the London School of Economics from 71st place to 35th, driven by a rise in its citations ranking. In general, the effect of this change on large universities with a comprehensive range of subject provision ought to be broadly neutral.This applies to most of our topranked institutions, so there have been few if anyearthquakes in the upper reaches of these rankings.
However, universities with a strong emphasis on the biomedical sciences lose the advantage afforded by our previous methodological approach in counting citation per faculty.
The most visible example is Imperial College, London. It has fallen from the number two position to eighth. The main reason is indeed the fall in its citation per faculty member indicator, as a result of the normalization applied to this measure. This is the only one of our six measures on which Imperial does not have a near-perfect score.
The other startling result near the top of these rankings is the rise of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. NTU is up 26 places to 13th, one place behind the National University of Singapore, making NTU much the newest top university in the world.In addition, it has proved possible for medicine-intensive universities to offset the effects of the citations changes by improving elsewhere. Examples include Johns Hopkins and Yale in the US. They both lost out in the citations reform, but have fallen less than might have been expected by doing better on other measures.
This new approach to citations allows us to look afresh at the relative standing of world higher education systems. One example is the possible rise in the standing of Asian higher education. Across the region, universities have been the focus of massive political emphasis, and of substantial financial investment. We have already seen that Singapore's commitment to learning and research is a success, with two top-20 universities in this ranking.
These rankings show little material change in the standing of universities in Japan, Korea or Taiwan. The main winners are in China and India. China's two top institutions, Tsinghua and Peking universities, are up by 22 and 16 places respectively to 25 and 41. In India, seven of the Indian Institutes of Technology are up this year including top-rated IIT Delhi (179th) which breaks into the Top 200 for the first time ever. As a general rule, engineering and technology attach less importance to citations than science and medicine. The top Indian institution is the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. It is a new entry at a praiseworthy 147, having satisfied QS that its work is broadly-based enough to be included in our global ranking.
Ben Sowter, QS head of research says “India's universities have clear strengths in technology and natural sciences, and with the historic emphasis on medical research now neutralized, are reflected in their rightful place in this year's tables. On a cautionary note, however, it's important to highlight that the trend in a number of key measures remains downward, so to retain and improve upon this year's results, the Indian Higher Education establishment must not be complacent, and must continue to drive for greater international recognition.“
There are 14 Indian institutions in the QS World University Rankings and half of them are among the global 400. While the IITs and the Institute of Science have all progressed in this edition, the large comprehensive universities, such as the University of Delhi and the University of Mumbai have lost ground, principally because of the normalisation by faculty applied to the research indicator but also due to deterioration in other dimensions as well.
The University of Delhi features among the world's top 200 in the Social Sciences & Management (191th) and Arts & Humanities tables (176th) while Jawaharlal Nehru University is the leading Indian university in this area (168th). Unsurprisingly, Indian institutions excel in the Engineering & Technology area, with five IITs among the Top 100 in the world while they also have a fairly strong profile in the Natural Sciences.
There is bound to be close attention to the effects of this year's major improvement to the rankings, the faculty-level normalisation of our citations count. The intention is to counteract the ferocious publish-or-perish culture of the biomedical field, and in the natural sciences, by equalising the effect of citations in the major areas of academic life.
For this year, its effects can be seen most starkly in the improved standing of institutions with a strong emphasis on the social sciences and the arts and humanities. Most striking is the rise of the London School of Economics from 71st place to 35th, driven by a rise in its citations ranking. In general, the effect of this change on large universities with a comprehensive range of subject provision ought to be broadly neutral.This applies to most of our topranked institutions, so there have been few if anyearthquakes in the upper reaches of these rankings.
However, universities with a strong emphasis on the biomedical sciences lose the advantage afforded by our previous methodological approach in counting citation per faculty.
The most visible example is Imperial College, London. It has fallen from the number two position to eighth. The main reason is indeed the fall in its citation per faculty member indicator, as a result of the normalization applied to this measure. This is the only one of our six measures on which Imperial does not have a near-perfect score.
The other startling result near the top of these rankings is the rise of Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. NTU is up 26 places to 13th, one place behind the National University of Singapore, making NTU much the newest top university in the world.In addition, it has proved possible for medicine-intensive universities to offset the effects of the citations changes by improving elsewhere. Examples include Johns Hopkins and Yale in the US. They both lost out in the citations reform, but have fallen less than might have been expected by doing better on other measures.
This new approach to citations allows us to look afresh at the relative standing of world higher education systems. One example is the possible rise in the standing of Asian higher education. Across the region, universities have been the focus of massive political emphasis, and of substantial financial investment. We have already seen that Singapore's commitment to learning and research is a success, with two top-20 universities in this ranking.
These rankings show little material change in the standing of universities in Japan, Korea or Taiwan. The main winners are in China and India. China's two top institutions, Tsinghua and Peking universities, are up by 22 and 16 places respectively to 25 and 41. In India, seven of the Indian Institutes of Technology are up this year including top-rated IIT Delhi (179th) which breaks into the Top 200 for the first time ever. As a general rule, engineering and technology attach less importance to citations than science and medicine. The top Indian institution is the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore. It is a new entry at a praiseworthy 147, having satisfied QS that its work is broadly-based enough to be included in our global ranking.
Ben Sowter, QS head of research says “India's universities have clear strengths in technology and natural sciences, and with the historic emphasis on medical research now neutralized, are reflected in their rightful place in this year's tables. On a cautionary note, however, it's important to highlight that the trend in a number of key measures remains downward, so to retain and improve upon this year's results, the Indian Higher Education establishment must not be complacent, and must continue to drive for greater international recognition.“
There are 14 Indian institutions in the QS World University Rankings and half of them are among the global 400. While the IITs and the Institute of Science have all progressed in this edition, the large comprehensive universities, such as the University of Delhi and the University of Mumbai have lost ground, principally because of the normalisation by faculty applied to the research indicator but also due to deterioration in other dimensions as well.
The University of Delhi features among the world's top 200 in the Social Sciences & Management (191th) and Arts & Humanities tables (176th) while Jawaharlal Nehru University is the leading Indian university in this area (168th). Unsurprisingly, Indian institutions excel in the Engineering & Technology area, with five IITs among the Top 100 in the world while they also have a fairly strong profile in the Natural Sciences.
No comments:
Post a Comment