Indian Institutions not Among ‘World’s Top 100 Reputed Universities’

If you believe that Indian universities have a great reputation across the globe, then this latest ranking of world universities will give you the shock of your life.

As per The Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings 2015, the list of top 100 does not have a single Indian university.

The other BRIC nations Brazil, Russia and China have at least one of their universities in the list.

Harvard University continues to hold the top spot in the list, followed by Cambridge University and Oxford University. The fourth position went to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

“(India) It needs to support its leading institutions or they risk falling behind not just the leading universities in the world, but the leading institutions among the emerging economies. Strong universities are crucial for the success of developing nations – helping to retain top talent in the country and prevent brain drain, attract investment, develop highly skilled future leaders and create new knowledge and drive the knowledge economy,” Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education (THE), said.

The Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Ranking is based entirely on reputation – it is created from a worldwide survey of 10,000 academics, and is based on their expert, but subjective opinion.

Baty added that the only good news was that Indian universities had increased their engagement for the World University Rankings due on October 1 this year.

A lot of Indian institutions are looking at signing up for the THE annual round of data collection to ensure they gained visibility on the global stage, he added.

“We can work with them to give them valuable insights into their performance against our trusted global data definitions and standards, and also help them develop a bespoke ranking for Indian institutions focussing more on their priority areas and national missions,” Baty said.

While talking about Indian institutes that had caught the attention of the academicians involved in the rankings, Baty said the Indian institutes of Technology (IITs) were best performers in the reputation rankings – “they have a strong reputation across the world so they tend to perform best in this particular analysis.”

On his several visits to India, Baty, a self-confessed “big fan of the country,” says there is a strong appetite among Indian university leaders to work with THE to help ensure they keep a global focus and can benchmark against the world’s best universities using THE’s trusted global standards.

Source: HT Education