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Indian universities yet again missed a spot on the Times Higher Education (THE) World Reputation Rankings 2017. The list is compiled through research insight, from leading academics across the world. No Indian university made it to the top-100 list, which Harvard University topped.
Asian universities, however, improved their performance, with 28 of them on the list. Some Chinese institutions went ahead of several prestigious European counterparts.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Stanford University retained their second and third positions that they had secured last year. Oxford and Cambridge came in a joint fourth.
University of California, Berkeley, Princeton University, Yale University, University of Chicago and California Institute of Technology followed, making up the top-10 list. Eight of these universities are in the US. Forty-two US universities are among the top 100. “The Times Higher Education World Reputation Rankings are based on nothing more than subjective judgement – but it is the considered judgement of senior, published academics, the people best placed to know the most about the world’s universities,” said THE Rankings Editor Phil Baty. He noted the rise of Asian, particularly Chinese universities. “These are overtaking distinguished Western institutions, including the Imperial College London, the University of Pennsylvania and Cornell University.”
Baty said Chinese universities were in a position to challenge institutions in North America and Europe. The absence of Indian institutes in reputation rankings is also due to slower adoption of proactive positioning as against their international, said Narayanan Ramaswamy Partner & Leader for Education & Skilling Sector, KPMG in India.
"Most global universities take conscious efforts to position themselves regarding who they are, why students should consider them or who have they hired. This is something which Indian institutes have rarely done. Even for IITs. It happens more through their alumni network than anything that they have proactively done. While such global rankings are recent phenomena, Indian institutes have been slower in adopting them as compared to their global counterparts. India has now started to do this and initiatives such as NIRF are welcoming steps in that direction," said Ramaswamy.
