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Journalism of Courage
Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU) and Symbiosis International Deemed University (SIU) were the only two Pune-based Universities to have achieved a rank in the five broad subject areas in the QS World Ranking by Subject 2025. SPPU achieved a rank of 451-500 in Natural Sciences and SIU achieved a rank of 253 in Social Sciences & Management. No University from Pune made it to the Arts & Humanities, Engineering & Technology, or Life Sciences & Medicine rankings.
Published on March 12, the QS Ranking by Subject features five broad subject areas, as mentioned above, which are further divided into 55 individual subjects. The Universities are judged on various criteria. In Natural Sciences, SPPU scored 70.4 in employer reputations, while in Research & Discovery it scored an average of 62.4. Only 3% of SPPU’s students were international students.
Professor Vinayak Joshi, Director of Internal Quality Assurance Cell at SPPU, told The Indian Express, “In the Natural Sciences section, which is subjects like Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, we have old departments and we have quite a good faculty strength. Parameters like number of papers, citation, h-index, number of research projects are also high.”
On how SPPU could improve in other subject areas where it has not achieved a rank, Joshi added, “Once the forthcoming faculty recruitment is done, then the actual number of papers, projects will increase. 111 posts are there. The University has also restarted the postdoctoral fellowship which will increase the research output.” The SPPU post-doctoral fellowship, paused since 2019 due to COVID-19, has been restarted this year.
He also added how Indian local language departments have a harder time making their presence felt in such ranking systems. “In my personal opinion, the indexing databases that are there, like scopus, are mainly for science background. For humanities, there are very few databases available, which are recognised worldwide. Particularly if you look at languages, like Marathi, Hindi, or Sanskrit.”
SIU, ranking 253 in the world in the Social Sciences & Management section, scored 88.9 on employability and an average of 67.0 in Research & Discovery. SIU had 96% domestic students and 4% international students. Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Pro Chancellor of SIU, said, “We are very happy with the Subject rankings by the QS world ranking agency. This only shows the high quality of teaching and research by our faculty.”
On how the University would work towards improving rankings in other subjects she added, “These ranking agencies also have a parameter of academic reputation, which is based on how many academicians in the world vote for you in that discipline. For medicine, which is relatively new, we will have to certainly work on our medical college being known globally. This can happen when our faculty do joint research with foreign faculty. We have initiated this by appointing two distinguished research professors at our medical school – Dr Ganagakhedkar and Dr Sundeep Salvi who are mentoring our medical faculty.”
The QS Asia University Rankings were released in November last year with SPPU bagging the 173rd spot, SIU from Pune achieving a rank of 216, and Bharati Vidyapeeth (Deemed) University making an entrance on the list with a rank range of 851-900.
