India pips China; has maximum number of universities featured in QS World University Rankings: Asia

QS World University Rankings: Asia.

According to the statement, this edition is the largest to date, featuring 856 institutions from 25 countries and Indian universities have demonstrated remarkable resilience in the QS Asian University Rankings with just over half of the ranked universities declining in position, 21 improving, 15 unchanged and 37 new entries.

“In fact, India takes the lion’s share of the new entries, while Mainland China sees only seven new additions to its list of ranked institutions,” states the report.  Ben Sowter, Senior Vice President at QS, noted, “The increasing visibility of Indian universities in the QS rankings reflects the dynamic expansion of India’s higher education landscape. While the significant growth in the number of Indian institutions and their research contributions marks a noteworthy development in the region’s educational profile, it also illuminates the path ahead for India to further elevate its standing in the global academic community.”

The Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), a UK-based company specialised in the analysis of higher education institutions around the world, ranked institutions on the basis of 10 indicators — academic reputation, employer reputation, faculty-student ratio, international relation network, citations per paper, paper per faculty, staff with PhD, international faculty, international students, and outbound exchange students.

While India falls below the regional average in academic reputation (11.8 vs 19) and employer reputation (9.6 vs 18), it achieves the second-best regional results in the papers per faculty metric (36.0 vs 14.8) among the higher education systems with more than 10 universities ranked. Seven Indian universities feature among the top 10 in the region for the papers per faculty indicator. India has achieved its best average score for the staff with PhD’ indicator (42.3 vs 22), signalling a strong research output and a highly qualified faculty body. This is only lower than Hong Kong SAR (57.6) and Taiwan (47.3).

Top 10 universities in QS World University Rankings: Asia.

QS’ papers per faculty indicator is measured based on paper count over a five-year period, excluding the current one. Stating that India’s research output has increased exponentially from 2018 to 2022, the UK-based ranking agency shared that it has increased by some 60 per cent over this period, “more than double the global average,” shared the agency, adding, “While China’s growth rate for the same period is 9 per cent higher, at 69 per cent.”

According to QS World University rankings, “Reducing the time frame of reference suggests that India is closing this growth gap. For example, from 2020 to 2022, China’s research output grew by 31 per cent while India’s grew by 29 per cent – a 7 per cent reduction in growth difference, suggesting that India is catching up with its regional competitor.”

Institutes ranked in the top three in India are IIT Bombay (40th), IIT Delhi (46th) and IIT Madras (53rd) which have consistently maintained their Asia rank from last year. Whereas IITs Kharagpur and Kanpur which rank 5th and 6th nationally, have shown a considerable jump in their Asia rank. IIT Kharagpur which was ranked 61 in 2023 has jumped to 59. And IIT Kanpur has jumped from rank 66 in last year to 63 in 2024.

The two non-IIT institutions from India in top 100 Asia ranks are Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and Delhi University. While the duo continues to remain in the list of top 100, both have witnessed a dip in their Asia ranks. While IISc Bangalore has dropped to rank 58 in 2024 from 52, last year, Delhi University which ranked 85th in 2023 is now at 94, barely managing a room in top 100 institutions in Asia.