IIT-M breaks into top 50 Asia universities

Indian Institute of Technology-Madras has broken into the top 50 of the 2016 Asia university rankings that were released by British company Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). Jumping 13 places from its position last year, IIT-Madras is ranked 43.
Bhaskar Ramamurthi, director, IIT-Madras attributed the rise to a combination of factors. “Also, at the last IIT council meeting, it was decided that each faculty member should produce at least one PhD. Our faculty student ratio at 1.1415 is another major reason for us surging ahead in the rankings,“ he said. Ramamurthi is also hoping that the rankings would stir interest among foreign students in making a beeline to Indian universities, and IIT-Madras in particular.
IISc-Bangalore (33), IITBombay (35), IIT-Delhi (36) and IIT-Kanpur (48) were the other Indian universities in the top 50. IIT-Kharagpur was placed 51st and two other IITs ­ Roorkee (78) and Guwahati (94) ­ made it to the top 100 as well. Amrita University (169) and Andhra University (301350 band) made their debuts while University of Delhi and University of Calcutta saw huge leaps ­ the former rose 25 places to 66th, while the latter jumped 41 places to 108th.With 23 universities in the top 350, India's performance was fifth best among the 17 countries featured in the list. National University of Singapore, University of Hong Kong and Nanyang Technological University took the top three spots in the rankings which evaluated 920 universities from Asia.

The rankings were expanded to include Asia's 350 best universities, an addition to 50 from last year. Methodological enhancements were also in place ­ staff with a PhD was included in the parameters. Academic reputation (30%), reputation among prospective employers (20%), faculty student ratio (15%), citations per paper (10%), papers per faculty (10%), staff with a PhD (5%), proportion of international faculty (2.5%), proportion of international students (2.5%), proportion of inbound exchange students (2.5%) and proportion of outbound exchange students (2.5%) were the deciding factors for ranking the institutions.