QS rankings: Indian varsities top Asia in research quantity, lag on quality

IIT Bombay top ranked Indian institute in QS Asia University Rankings 2022

When it comes to research quantity in terms of number of papers per faculty, no other country comes close to India, suggest findings of the latest Asia University Rankings 2022 by global higher education think-tank Quacquarelli Symonds' (QS). However, Indian varsities have a long way to go in order to improve the quality and impact of the research in terms of number of citations.

For instance, commenting on the country's performance in the rankings, QS Research Director Ben Sowter said that of the 18 nations, territories and special administrative regions that make up QS's Asian Rankings, India has the highest number of top-100 universities in the Staff with PhD indicator, taking up 40 per cent of the places. In terms of research productivity, Indian universities conquered 34 per cent of the top-100 spots for Papers per Faculty.

"However, when it comes to the impact of the research produced, we only find six Indian institutions among the top-100. Indian universities do not prioritise international students as much as other regional competitors since the domestic demand for university places is higher than the current availability. Therefore, the local universities tend to struggle with indicators that focus on international students, international faculty, and student exchange programs," said Sowter.

The 2022 QS World University Rankings: Asia contains 687 universities, including forty new entries, and is QS’s most extensive independent comparison of the region’s higher education system. The table accounts for eleven key indicators of university performance, which capture academic standing, graduate employability, research quality and productivity, internationalization on campus, and the diversity of each institution’s international collaborations. Overall, the National University of Singapore is named as the continent’s best university for the fourth consecutive year.

With a few exceptions, India doesn’t perform well in the faculty/student ratio as well. Only six of its universities are among the top-100 in this proxy measure for resources allocated to teaching and classroom sizes.  

"In this edition, we noticed a decline in the Employer Reputation indicator, based on the opinion of over 75,000 HR personnel and other hiring managers. Seventy-six Indian universities lost ground in this indicator, while sixty-nine lost ground in – or also – in the Academic Reputation indicator, based on the views of over 130,000  international respondents. We take a five-year window on our surveys. This edition is the first to also include responses received during the pandemic, so a small percentage of the decline may be linked to the perception shifts that occurred during the incredibly trialling times that India and the world have seen," Sowter elaborated.

In terms of overall rankings, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay was the top Indian institute in Asia with a rank of 42, down by five places from 37 in the 2021 edition. The other leading Indian institutes in overall rankings included IIT Delhi (45), IIT Madras (54) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) at 56th position.

Meanwhile, commending the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 for aiming to produce positive and profound transformation and innovation across the entire education spectrum, Sowter said much more needed to be done to make the local higher education system more internationally competitive.

Indian Institutes in QS Asia University Rankings 2022

Institute	2022	2021
IIT Bombay	42	37
IIT Delhi	45	47
IIT Madras	54	50
IISc	56	56
IIT Kharagpur	60	58
IIT Kanpur	64	72
University of Delhi	77	71