Educationworld India University Rankings 2015

The top management of the Delhi-based market research company C fore constituted a sample database of 5,689 academics, final year university students and industry managers to rate and rank Indias Top 200 universities across seven parameters of academic excellence Dilip Thakore The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (aka Bangalore) is Indias top-ranked university followed by the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai and Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, according to an inaugural nationwide poll-cum-study commissioned by EducationWorld, and conducted by the well-known Delhi-based market research and opinion polling company, Centre for Forecasting and Research Pvt. Ltd (C fore, estb.2000). For over four months after the C fore top management constituted a sample database of 5,689 well-informed individuals including 2,567 academics, 1,835 final year students in 187 universities and 1,287 managers in Indian industry, 124 C fore field personnel asked them to rate and rank the countrys Top 200 universities across seven parameters of academic excellence — competence of faculty, faculty welfare and development, research and innovation, pedagogic systems and processes, industry interface/experiential learning, placements and infrastructure and facilities. Some parameters viz competence of faculty (150), research and innovation (300) and infrastructure (150) have been given higher weight. Moreover, unlike the annual EducationWorld-C fore India School Rankings which are purely perceptual, in this survey considerable weightage is given (under the research and innovation parameter) to academic papers included in the globally-respected Thomson Reuters Web of Science and Elseviers Scopus listings. The rating and ranking league tables are based on measurable objective data and perceptions. The objective data, i.e publications and citations in refereed journals was obtained from secondary sources. Simultaneously, a perceptual survey was conducted among important stakeholders of the higher education system, viz, faculty members, final year students and leaders and managers of industry. The respondents were asked to rate the universities they are familiar with on seven parameters given differing weights, says Premchand Palety, promoter-director of C fore whose lengthening clients list includes Hindustan Times, CNBC TV18 and Mint. Within the 400-acre campus of the Indian Institute of Science , Bangalore (IISc, estb.1909), promoted through a generous land grant by pioneer industrialist J.N. Tata who founded the Mumbai-based Tata business empire (estimated annual revenue: Rs.652,304 crore), the top ranking the institute has been awarded in the inaugural EW India University Rankings 2015, has generated little excitement. Countrywide, theres general acceptance — certainly within the institutes faculty — that IISc stands head and shoulders above all others because the annual research output of its 400-strong faculty cited in refereed journals is greater than the next five universities combined. Although its ranked a modest 222 and 276-300 in the latest World University Rankings league tables (2014-15) of the authoritative London-based Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and Times Higher Education (THE) journal, until 2012 when it used to publish its own league tables of world universities, The Financial Times, London used to routinely include IISc within its list of Top 20 global research universities. We are pleased to learn that IISc has been ranked Indias…