London, 8 June 2017: There are many surprises in the QS World University Rankings 2018, which was released today. The most surprise element of this year’s rankings is that three universities from India break into the world’s top 200 universities for the first time since QS’s inaugural rankings of 2004. Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay rises from 219^th to 179^th to join Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Delhi and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore in this group.

In another surprise, IIT Delhi replaces IISc Bangalore as India’s highest-ranked university for the first time since both universities were ranked together. IIT Delhi rises from 185^th to 172^nd place, while IISc Bangalore drops from 152^nd place to 190^th position.

 QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global education analysts, have today released the fourteenth edition of their flagship QS World University Rankings, the most popular of their kind. This year’s table provides the definitive guide to the world’s 959 top universities. Massachusetts Institute of Technology is named the world’s leading university for a record sixth consecutive year.

In total, 20 Indian institutions are ranked – six more than in last year’s edition. Of the 14 for whom year-on-year comparisons are possible, five drop in rank and 5 improve in rank. The University of Delhi jumps into the top 500, rising from the 501-550 category to the 481-490 category.

IISc Bangalore ranks 6^th in the world for QS’s Citations per Faculty metric. This metric measures the research intensiveness and research impact of a university by dividing the number of citations that a university’s research acquires by the number of faculty at that university. QS note that IISc Bangalore’s research papers were cited nearly 82,000 times over the five-year period QS use for this metric.  This is almost twice as many as India’s second most research-intensive university, IIT Kharagpur, whose papers were cited 41,000 times over the five-year window.

QS also highlighted that this year’s results see Indian universities record low scores for internationalisation and fostering graduate employability. All but one of India’s ranked institutions for whom year-on-year comparisons are possible see their global rank for Employer Reputation drop. Furthermore, every single Indian university for whom year-on-year comparisons are possible see their International Student ratios drop.

Ben Sowter, Research Director at QS, said: “This year’s Indian performance reflects two realities of global higher education. The first is that Indian inbound mobility still remains extremely low, while much of the rest of the world are increasing inbound student numbers. The second is that employers, especially domestic ones, seem unconvinced by the quality of graduates exiting the Indian higher education system. Better liaison between Indian education institutions and employers is required if this graduate skills gap is to be narrowed, and Indian universities are to progress in global rankings.”

Top Ten Universities in India as per QS World University Rankings 2018