Barring high profile professional training institutes like IITs and IIMs, mainstream Indian universities are known for their dismal performance in International rankings. Most of the international rankings are highly complex exercises and evaluates both quantity and quality of scientific research in educational institutions. Following are the top 25 universities in India for their research output and quality. These are drawn based on the new performance index developed by Gangan Prathap and BM Gupta, based on the data collected by SCOPUS (www.scopus.com). Both of these researchers are associated with NISCIR and NISTADS respectively.
Tamil Nadu tops the list with 5 universities finding place in the top 25 list followed by Andhra Pradesh with 4 universities, including University of Hyderabad at the number one position. Though most of these universities are already highly popular and known for their credentials in various fields, the rankings based on scientific research will add more value to the existing reputation. Following is the list of top 25 Universities in India based on scientific research:
1. University of Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
2. Delhi University, New Delhi
3. Punjab University, Punjab
4. Jadavpur University, West Bengal
5. Banaras Hindu University, Uttar Pradesh
6. University of Madras, Tamil Nadu
7. Sanjay Gandhi Post Graduate Institute of Medical Sciences, Chandigarh
8. Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi
9. Pune University, Maharashtra
10. Anna University, Tamil Nadu
11. Annamalai University, Tamil Nadu
12. University of Rajasthan, Rajasthan
13. Guru Nanak Dev University, Punjab
14. CMC Vellore, Tamil Nadu
15. University of Calcutta, West Bengal
16. Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh
17. University of Mumbai, Maharashtra
18. Madurai Kamaraj University, Tamil Nadu
19. Shri Venkateswara University, Andhra Pradesh
20. Cochin University of Science and Technology, Kerala
21. University of Mysore, Karnataka
22. Osmania University, Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh
23. Andhra University, Visakhapatnam, Andhra Pradesh
24. CCS Haryana Agricultural University, Haryana
25. Punjab Agricultural University, Punjab
The list has been drawn for a total of 25 universities with high output of publications during 1999-2008. These universities had each published more than 1200 scientific research papers during this period, according to the SCOPUS International data. If taken together, all the universities contributed 59685 papers, constituting 18 percent of papers to the total cumulative research output by India during the specified time. The list may be relevant today, even though it is based on the recent past research work of the universities.
There may be some important and inadvertent omissions in the list. Some of the other equally reputed universities in India are: University of Allahabad, Jamia Milia Islamia, MS University of Baroda, Madurai Kamaraj University, Pondicherry University etc. What is your take on these universities and their reputation. Do you want to add any other University or like to delete any institute from the list? You can express your opinions in the form of comments below!