Indian educational institutes occupy 16 places among top 200 universities in Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies rankings for 2016. At 16th place, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore is the only Indian institute to feature in the top 20.
China, on the other hand, has five institutes among top 10 followed by two from South Africa, and one each from Taiwan, Brazil and Russia. Even Taiwan has done better than India with 24 universities in top 200.
Releasing the report on Thursday, Phil Baty, editor, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, said, “It is good news for India that 16 of its institutions feature in this year’s list of the best universities in the BRICS nations and emerging economies. However, India will have to work harder to compete with other developing nations, such as Russia, which have a higher proportion of institutions in the upper echelons of the table. India is the only BRICS nation without a university in the top ten.”
At 29th place, Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay makes to the Top 30, but rankings show that it requires investment and international collaboration if it has to compete with institutions from other BRICS nations.
China dominates the rankings, with Peking Universityand Tsinghua University at first and second position respectively. The University of Science and Technology of China is at seventh place, Zhejiang University at eighth and Shanghai Jiao Tong University at tenth. From Russia, Lemonosov Moscow State University is at third place; from South Africa, University of Cape Town is at fourth and University of Witwatersrand at sixth. National Taiwan University is at fifth. In fact, Taiwan has 24 universities in top 200. University of Sao Paulo, Brazil is at ninth place.
Speaking about the performance indicators that the rankings are based on Baty said, “These rankings are based on the same established and trusted thirteen performance indicators used to create the annual Times Higher Education World University Rankings, but they are specially calibrated to reflect the development priorities of universities in emerging economies.”
Baty said, “India spends less than 0.88% of its GDP on science research, compared with 2.76% for the United States and 4.04% for South Korea. With the population of young people in the country continuing to expand resulting in further pressure on resources, it is now more crucial than ever that India invests in research and strengthens its links with other nations.”