Broad Discipline
In examining the broad disciplines of Arts and Humanities, Engineering and Technology, Life Sciences and Medicine, Natural Sciences, and Social Science and Management, we find that out of approximately 500 globally ranked institutions in each broad discipline area, India?s most number of ranked institutions is 12 in Engineering and Technology, 11 in Natural Sciences and 11 in Social Sciences and Management. The relative strength in Engineering and Science disciplines is not surprising given traditional capabilities in these areas driven by longer term investments, emphasis on building science based industries in the post- independence era, and a number of pre-eminent global scientists. Moreover, in the Engineering discipline the number of ranked institutions has increased compared to last year, while it has remained steady in Natural Sciences.
Top Ranked Institutions
As is to be expected, the top ranked institutions in the engineering and science disciplines is driven by the famed Institutes of Technology (IIT?s) or Indian Institute of Science (IIS), those smaller, research intensive institutions, which have spearheaded in many senses India?s scientific capabilities. In the latest rankings, for example, eight out of the 12 ranked institutions are IIT?s or the IIS in Engineering and Technology. A similar pattern is exhibited in the case of natural sciences.
What is of particular interest in the 2020 QS rankings is that for Engineering and Technology, the best ranked Institution is the Indian Institute of Bombay, at a very healthy equal 44th in the world, up a significant nine places on its 2019 performance. In natural sciences, IIT Bombay, the best ranked Indian Institution in 2020, has also made considerable strides from a lower base ie from equal 132 in 2019 to equal 108 in 2020.
Some constraints
The absence of a wider set of ranked institutions outside the well- established suggests that India still has a way to go to develop a broad based, leading edge core of institutions. Also absent are the newly established private providers, although noting that building capability of the type required for rankings takes times, and these institutions often have a different remit to the more traditional public ones. Another point is the narrowness somewhat of ranked institution by discipline. For example, in 2020, India has only 6 ranked institutions in Arts and Humanities, and surprisingly and somewhat disappointingly is that there are only 2 ranked institutions in life sciences and medicine. The latter is a puzzle given that India does have a sound reputation in many fields of medical endeavor. Perhaps this is more in clinical practice rather than research per se and globally fierce competition in this discipline? However, we must note that in social sciences and management, India performs quite well with 11 ranked institutions, up slightly from its position in 2019. Possibly this reflects the growing importance of entrepreneurship and management as India?s business sector becomes more sophisticated, innovative and globally oriented.
India in the Asian context
Of interest is that India is, to some extent, becoming more of a ?player? in terms of its impact in the Asian region. In all broad disciplines, India?s share of ranked Asian institutions has risen between 2018 and 2020 e.g its share of ranked Asian Institutions in 2020 in Engineering and Technology is 8.5%, up from 7.1% in 2018. It is also instructive to note that Asia?s share of globally ranked institutions in all broad disciplines has fallen between 2018 and 2020. Tentatively, India?s star is on the ascent as the overall Asian region is experiencing some decline, however one would not want to overstate this.
Broader Capabilities
We also consider briefly India?s performance more broadly in innovation and talent development, for context, relevance to Higher Education, and as pointers to the future. In the 2019 Global Innovation Index https://www.globalinnovationindex.org/gii-2019-report, India recorded its best performance to date, being placed 52nd out of 129 countries, on the back of strength in science and engineering graduates 7th (although not a quality indicator), 21st in the world on QS university rankings, measured in this instance as the average of the scores of the top 3 institutions in QS, and 23rd on university/industry research collaboration. However, considerable challenges still abound in terms of female participation in the labour market for those with advanced degrees, and more generally knowledge intensive employment. The number of researchers as a proportion of the population and overall expenditure on research are also areas requiring attention. These features are relevant to the objectives, resourcing and performance of Higher Education. The Global Talent Competiveness Index 2020 points to not dissimilar features. India performs reasonably well on such things as lifelong learning, brain gain, quality of management schools, relevance of education system to the economy and employability? (somewhat of a surprise given concerns in industry about work ready graduates). Challenges are identified in terms of the population with secondary education (the important pipeline for the tertiary sector), vocational and tertiary enrolment, labour productivity and mid -level skills, among other things. https://gtcistudy.com/
The QS subject ranking demonstrates that India is pushing onwards and upwards in the areas of existing strength, but further attention to wider capability building is needed.
Dr Anand Kulkarni?s book India and The Knowledge Economy: Performance, Perils and Prospects was published by Springer in September 2019.
This article was recently published in the University World News
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