The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Mumbai has attained its highest-ever ranking, breaking into the world’s top 150 institutions in the world. According to the newest edition of the QS (Quacquarelli Symonds) World University Ranking, which was revealed late Tuesday night. This is the first time in eight years that an Indian higher education school has entered the top 150 list. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore previously accomplishing this accomplishment with a position of 147 in 2016.
In this year’s edition of the rankings, IIT Bombay has risen 23 places to clinch the 149th position internationally. However, the ranking has undergone major swings, with IISc dropping 70 spots from 155th to 225th.
It is currently the third-highest ranked Indian university, after becoming the finest Indian institution the previous year. IIT Delhi dropped from 174 to 197, IIT Kanpur from 264 to 278, and IIT Madras from 250 to 285.
The volatility has been ascribed in part by the UK-based rating firm QS Quacquarelli Symonds to an adjustment of the evaluation standards this year. It included three additional metrics, each with a 5% weightage: sustainability, employment results, and international research network.
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QS adjust the priority of other factors to fit the three new indications. The weightage assigned to the academic reputation indicator has been reduced from 40% to 30%.
QS world University Ranking List
| Sr. No | University Name | Location | 2023 | 2022 | 2021 |
| 1 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | Cambridge, MA, United States | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | University of Cambridge | Cambridge, ENG, United Kingdom | 2 | 3 | 7 |
| 3 | Stanford University | Stanford, CA, United States | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| 4 | University of Oxford | Oxford, ENG, United Kingdom | 4 | 2 | 5 |
| 5 | Harvard University | Cambridge, MA, United States | 5 | 5 | 3 |
| 6 | California Institute of Technology – Caltech | Pasadena, CA, United States | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| 7 | Imperial College London | London, ENG, United Kingdom | 6 | 7 | 8 |
| 8 | University College London (UCL) | London, ENG, United Kingdom | 8 | 8 | 10 |
| 9 | ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology | Zürich, Switzerland | 9 | 8 | 6 |
| 10 | University of Chicago | Chicago, IL, United States | 10 | 10 | 9 |
| 11 | National University of Singapore | Singapore, Singapore | 11 | 11 | 11 |
| 12 | Peking University | Beijing, China | 12 | 18 | 23 |
| 13 | University of Pennsylvania | Philadelphia, PA, United States | 13 | 13 | 16 |
| 14 | Tsinghua University | Beijing, China | 14 | 17 | 15 |
| 15 | The University of Edinburgh | Edinburgh, SCT, United Kingdom | 15 | 16 | 20 |
| 16 | Princeton University | Princeton, NJ, United States | 16 | 20 | 12 |
| 17 | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne | Lausanne, Switzerland | 16 | 14 | 14 |
| 18 | Yale University | New Haven, CT, United States | 18 | 14 | 17 |
| 19 | Nanyang Technological University | Singapore, Singapore | 19 | 12 | 13 |
| 20 | Cornell University | Ithaca, NY, United States | 20 | 21 | 18 |
| 21 | The University of Hong Kong | Hong Kong, Hong Kong (SAR) | 21 | 22 | 22 |
| 22 | Columbia University | New York City, NY, United States | 22 | 19 | 19 |
| 23 | The University of Tokyo | Tokyo, Japan | 23 | 23 | 24 |
| 24 | Johns Hopkins University | Baltimore, MD, United States | 24 | 25 | 25 |
The faculty student ratio
Similarly, the importance of the faculty student ratio has been reduced from 15% to 10%, while the importance of the employer reputation indication has been enhanced from 10% to 15%.
The decrease emphasis on the faculty-student ratio (FSR) has harmed colleges such as IISC, which is largely a research-focused university with a lesser teaching burden than the IITs. The FSR indicator had shown that IISc was operating nicely. Its rating has suffered as a result of the reduced weightage. According to a QS representative, this is not the only issue that has contributed to IISc’s drop in rankings.
“In addition to the faculty student ratio, IISc has seen drops in several indicators this year, particularly those focusing on global engagement (international students’ ratio, international faculty ratio, international research network).” There has also been a decrease in citations per faculty member and employer reputation,” a spokeswoman informed this publication.
Among the factors, IIT Bombay excels in employment reputation and citations per teacher. Notably, the citation per professor score has increased significantly from 55.1 last year to an astounding 73.1 this year.
Over the last five years, it has risen from 102nd to 69th in terms of employer reputation, and from 226th to 133rd in terms of citations per professor.
IIT Bombay Research plan
According to Subhasis Chaudhuri, Director of IIT Bombay, during the pandemic lockdown, the institute’s research production increased, resulting in multiple research articles published in high-impact journals that are now being referenced, leading to the better ranking.
“From 2018 to 2022, IIT Bombay produce 15,905 academic papers, resulting in 143,800 citations.” Over this time, it has seen a 17% increase in research. They have over four times the worldwide median for average citations per teacher, which is a remarkable performance by any metric.
Its research output is evenly divided between engineering and natural sciences. According to citations, the highly collaborative work throughout Astrophysics has aroused significant attention,” Andrew Mac Farlane, QS’ senior research manager, told The Indian Express.
“The fact that 30% of IIT Bombay’s output is publish in the top 10% of academic journals by impact demonstrates the quality of its research.” This ratio is 6% higher than the worldwide norm and 15% higher than the average among Indian schools,” Mac Farlane said, adding that the institute has yet to demonstrate the same level of improvement in our internationalization indicators (foreign students and foreign faculty).
According to Chaudhari, “our employment and employer reputation score is above 82 points. Which is higher than international universities like Johns Hopkins, CMU, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, and Purdue University.”
IIT Bombay producing Best Leaders
This demonstrates that IIT Bombay is succeeding in its aim of producing highly trained workers who are today leaders in global corporations.”
India is the seventh most represented country in the world this year. And the third in Asia, following only Japan (52 institutions) and China (Mainland) (71 universities). The University of Delhi (ranked 407th) and Anna University (ranked 427th) are India’s two new additions to the world’s top 500 institutions.
This year, four new Indian institutions were ranked: the University of Petroleum and Energy Studies (UPES), Chitkara University, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University, and the Indian Statistical Institute.
Overall, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the United States led the World University Ranking for the twelfth consecutive year this year. This closely followed by Cambridge University and Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Notably, the National University of Singapore (NUS) rose three places from 11th place last year to become the first Asian university to get into the top ten.
Three Australian institutions advanced significantly to the top 20. The University of Melbourne climbed by 19 spots to 14th (a first for any Australian university), while the University of New South Wales and the University of Sydney both progressed by 26 and 22 rankings, respectively, to tie for 19th.
However, American colleges accounted for half of the top 20 schools in the world, with UC Berkeley making a long-awaited return to the top ten ranking. For the sixteenth year in a row, ETH Zurich has been named the greatest university in Europe.