Seven Indian institutes make it to top 500 ranks

DHNS

Two Bengaluru institutions have been featured once again among the top 500 world institutions in terms of science research output.

Bengaluru, 23 April 2016: The rankings were published by the Nature Publishing Group that brings out a number of well known academic journals. It also says that in terms of the overall science output of a country, India ranked 13 while the United States topped the list. 

 

Five other Indian institutions have been featured in the rankings namely, the Indian Institutes of Technology (rank 51), Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (80), Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (159), Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (rank 268), Indian Association for the Cultivation of Science (295) and the University of Hyderabad (472). 

 

In the latest rankings released on Thursday, the ranking of the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research (JNCASR) has significantly gone up while that of the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has marginally slipped, from 123 in 2015 to 137. The IISc, however, is still in much higher position in the rankings than JNCASR, which ranked 442 in 2015 and climbed up 45 bars to reach 397. 

 

A senior faculty from JNCASR, who didn’t wish to be named, said: “We are obviously very happy that our ranking has improved. Our publication record is excellent. Considering the number of faculty and students that the institution comprises, I would say that we have been highly productive.”

 

A senior faculty from the IISc said a few factors like the absence of nobel laureates among the faculty at IISc, besides others, went against achieving a higher position in such rankings. However, there was no reason to worry, he said.

 

Prof Anurag Kumar, Director, IISc and V Nagaraja, president, JNCASR, could not be reached for a comment.  

 

The top three institutions in the world are the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, the Harvard University, USA and the French National Centre for Scientific Research, France.

 

The ranking was made based on the Nature Index, a database of author affiliation information compiled from research articles published in 68 science journals. The database has 43,000 plus institutions and 8,500 plus parent institutions associated with articles tracked by the Nature Index. This was collected from February 1, 2015 to January 31, 2016.