India is rising in rankings but needs to broaden its base

The 2020 QS World University Rankings by Subject released recently provide a timely reminder of the importance of looking at the underlying parameters and specificities of rankings. This is particularly true when it comes to India and its recent performance.

Broad disciplines

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 largest number of ranked institutions is 12 in the field of engineering and technology, 11 in natural sciences and 11 in social sciences and management.

Its relative strength in engineering and science disciplines is not surprising given its traditional capabilities in these areas, which are driven by longer term investments, the emphasis on building science-based industries in the post-independence era and the number of pre-eminent global scientists it has produced. 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 are driven by the famed Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) or the Indian Institute of Science (IIS), those smaller, research-intensive institutions which have, in many senses, led India’s scientific capabilities. In the latest rankings, for example, eight out of the 12 ranked institutions are IITs 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 Technology 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 132nd in 2019 to equal 108th in 2020.

Some constraints

The absence of a wider set of ranked institutions outside the well-established ones 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 it must be noted that building capability of the type required for rankings takes time and that these institutions often have a different remit to the more traditional public ones.

Another point is how few institutions are ranked in some disciplines. For example, in 2020, India has only six ranked institutions in arts and humanities, and surprisingly and somewhat disappointingly, there are only two 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 endeavour. Perhaps this is more to do with clinical practice rather than research per se and due to the globally fierce competition in this discipline?

However, it is to be noted 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 the fact that India is, to some extent, becoming more of a ‘player’ in terms of its impact in the Asian region. Across the main disciplines, India’s share of ranked Asian institutions has risen between 2018 and 2020, for instance, 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 across all broad disciplines has fallen between 2018 and 2020. We may say tentatively that India’s star is on the ascent as the overall Asian region is experiencing some element of decline, but one would not want to overstate this.

Broader capabilities

We should also briefly consider India’s performance more broadly in innovation and talent development as this provides context and a pointer to the future. In the 2019 Global Innovation Index, India recorded its best performance to date, being placed 52nd out of 129 countries on the back of its strength in turning out science and engineering graduates (for which it was ranked seventh – although this is not an indicator of quality).

It was also 26th in the world for quality of innovation on QS university rankings, measured as the average of the scores of the top three 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 with regard to 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 Competitiveness 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 the 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 percentage of the population with secondary education (a vital pipeline for the tertiary sector), vocational and tertiary enrolment, labour productivity and mid-level skills, among other things.

The QS subject ranking demonstrates that India is pushing onwards and upwards in its areas of existing strength, but that further attention to wider capability building is needed.

Dr Anand Kulkarni is associate director, planning and performance, Victoria University, Australia. His book India and the Knowledge Economy: Performance, perils, and prospects was published by Springer in September 2019.