The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-14, announced in London, does not have a single Indian institute among the top 200. There is, however, some good news. The Panjab University (PU) has made an impressive debut in the 226-250 bracket, leaving behind the premier Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) which have so far represented India in the global academic rankings.
IIT-Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, IIT-Kharagpur and IIT-Roorkee are all behind in the 351-400 segment. Just like the QS rankings earlier this year, the IITs have put up a poor show. For instance, IIT-Kharagpur, which was in the 226-250 segment last year, has fallen to the 351-400 slot.
These four IITs and PU are the only five Indian institutes among the top 400, according to the Times rankings. The Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Pune University, universities of Bombay and Calcutta are conspicuously absent.
For the second consecutive year, the California Institute of Technology has topped the list, followed by Harvard University, which shares second place with the University of Oxford. Stanford University has slipped from second to fourth position. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (fifth), Princeton University (sixth), University of Cambridge (seventh), University of California, Berkeley (eighth), University of Chicago (ninth) and Imperial College London (10th) complete the top 10.
The US, with seven institutes in the top 10 and 77 in the top 200, dominates the rankings. Japan?s University of Tokyo, at 23rd place, is the top Asian institute.
?These results should be encouraging for India: while no Indian institution makes the top 200, one player new to the rankings, Panjab University, is close in the 226-250 group. Moreover, India now has five representatives in the top 400 ? a sign of growing commitment to the global rankings,? said Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
?The drive in India to share more data and to compare its institutions against the trusted, established and rigorous standards set by the Times Higher Education World University Rankings is a great step to improved quality,? he added.
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings uses 13 separate performance indicators to examine a university?s strengths against all its core missions ? teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.
