Click here to join Express Pune WhatsApp channel and get a curated list of our stories
© The Indian Express Pvt Ltd
Tags:
Journalism of Courage
In addition to dwindling faculty numbers, research integrity, redundant syllabus, a lack of international faculty and student diversity, and inadequate ‘data management’ are reasons for Savitribai Phule Pune University’s (SPPU) drop in National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) this year, said former Vice-Chancellor of the university Nitin Karmalkar. SPPU’s rank slid to 91 in the ‘Overall’ rankings this year as compared to the 37 rank it achieved last year.
Post discussion on the drop in rankings organised by the Progressive Education Society on Wednesday, Karmalkar shared data from the Research Integrity Risk Index (RI²), developed by Lokman Meho at the American University of Beirut. SPPU was ranked in the ‘Red Flag’ category, signalling extreme anomalies and systemic integrity risks. This means a higher than acceptable number of research papers are either retracted or published in journals delisted by Scopus or Web of Science.
He added that steps must be taken to increase the ‘Perception’ metric of the university that had fallen. “Another area we are lacking in is perception, maybe not just from today but even during or before my time. Just like emeritus professors, we have a category called distinguished professors. We had selected people who would provide the university with visibility, like Satish Alekar, Sanjay Dhande, Vikram Gokhale, etc. Just their presence on our campus has a lot of indirect benefits,” said Kalmalkar.
Talking about data input by the universities for rankings such as NIRF, Kalmalkar, who was the Vice-Chancellor from 2017 to 2022, said, “While compiling the data, we had to analyse each and every parameter of where we are falling behind everyday. And one must know how to play with that data. That is what private universities do. Is there any such thing as permanent faculty in private universities? We all know what is the truth. But still if they are able to improve in their rankings; it means that they have understood the way the data needs to be compiled…the permutations and combinations have to be continuously analysed.”
Karmalkar also suggested inclusion of modern courses, “Today’s era is of AI, data science, bioinformatics, and such fields. Therefore when we talk about the university it is not just the size but also scale, speed, and scope. What work are we doing in emerging fields to compete with private universities?”
