Indian Educational Institution's IISc Top Institute In The Year 2016

NEW DELHI: It has been a mixed bag for Indian education institutions in the 2016 edition of the QS World University Rankings for BRICS nations — Brazil, China, India, Russia, and South Africa — released on Wednesday. While India expanded its base in the rankings with 17.6 per cent of the 250 universities from the country, its highest ranked university, the Indian Institute of Sciences, Bengaluru, fell one place from last year's rankings. Apart from that, six of the top 10 Indian universities in the rankings also lost positions. Also, India has one fewer university in the top 20 when compared to the 2015 rankings. Still, India has eight universities in the top 50, same as Russia and one more than Brazil. QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts and compilers of the QS World University Rankings, releases a ranking of the best universities in the BRICS nations every year.

This year it expanded the survey to the top 250 universities in the bloc. The expanded ranking results showed an increased proportion of Indian universities. In 2015, Indian universities took 31 of the 200 available places — or 15.5 per cent. This year, it was 44 out of 250 or 17.6 per cent. But India's representation remains below that of China (86 universities), Russia (55 universities) and Brazil (54 universities). Ben Sowter, head of research at QS, said, "The expanded rankings demonstrate India's increasing strength in depth, successes that are based primarily on its research excellence. Twelve of their universities score 90 or above for our citations per paper indicator, highlighting that India's research output is able to compete with the best produced by China, Brazil, and Russia."

"The data we use to compile the rankings shows that 21 Indian institutions achieve full marks for hiring staff with PhD qualifications," he added. The top five places went to Chinese institutions. IISc, Bengaluru, came in sixth. Delhi University rose from 46th place to 41st place this year. This follows a sharp rise from 91st to 66th in the latest QS University Rankings: Asia.