Bengaluru’s Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has emerged as the top-ranked Indian institution in Times Higher Education’s list of universities in emerging economies with an overall 16th rank. As many as 11 Indian institutions, mostly Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), are on the list of top 100 universities dominated by Chinese institutions.
The top four on the list are Chinese universities–Tsinghua University, Peking University, Zhejiang University and the University of Science and Technology. Russia’s Lomonosov Moscow State University is ranked fifth.
The IISc retained its position in the top 20 but dropped two places compared to the previous year. In the 2019 rankings, the IISc was ranked 14th.
Among other Indian institutes, IIT Kharagpur is ranked 32nd, IIT Bombay 34th, IIT Delhi 38th, IIT Indore 61st while IIT Ropar and IIT Madras are jointly ranked 63rd. Mumbai’s Institute of Chemical Technology has got the 73rd place and Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (AVV) 90th. IIT Ropar and AVV have made it to the top 100 for the first time.
As many as 56 Indian institutions have made it to the overall list of 533 compared to mainland China’s 81. The 533 universities are located in 47 countries across the world. They include Brazil, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Chile, China, Columbia, Egypt, Indonesia, Kuwait.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has been trying to improve the international standing of the Indian institutions since it came to power in 2014. It has launched an ambitious Institutes of Eminence scheme to nurture the best among Indian institutions as part of the efforts to improve their rankings and to attract international students. The number of international students is one of the parameters for global rankings agencies.