IITs way down the list in Shanghai engineering rankings

None of India’s premier institutes, except for Mumbai University (world ranking 151-200), could make it to the world’s top 200 in the Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects 2016, released on Wednesday.Compiled by the Centre for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, the ranking was topped by American universities such as University of California at Berkeley, Massachusetts

Institute of Technology, and Stanford University. The United Kingdom’s University of Cambridge, University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, also outshone others in different subjects. The institutes were ranked in seven subjects, including chemical engineering, civil engineering, electrical and electronic engineering, energy science and engineering, environmental science and engineering, materials science and engineering, and mechanical engineering.

While research was the prime criteria, institutes were assessed for research productivity, high and top quality research, average global research impact, international collaboration, extent of academic-corporation collaboration, researchers with global academic influences, and academic awards.

Mumbai University was ranked 151-200 in chemical engineering and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) was slotted among 201-300 universities. A total of 724 universities were ranked and the top 300 published.

No Indian institute found a place in the top 100 in civil engineering. Among institutes for electrical and electronic engineering, IISc, IIT Delhi and IIT Bombay were ranked 201-300. The US dominated the top places in this field with 45 universities finding a place in the top 100 list. A total of 937 universities were ranked in this subject and 400 published.

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For environmental science and engineering, IISc was ranked 301-400. The institute was also placed 201-300 in materials science and engineering with IIT-Kharagpur. IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras were ranked 401-600. Among the institutes for mechanical engineering, IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras were ranked 201-300.

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A team member of the Shanghai Rankings project who did not wish to be named said all indicators pointed to Indian institutes not being as productive as other universities in producing scholarly output. The academic-corporate collaboration indicator also seemed to be “weak” in many subjects, she said. This could be an area of concern as universities from other Asian countries, such as China, Japan, South Korea, and Singapore performed very strongly.