London, 6 June 2018: Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) have begun to make consistent progress on the global stage, according to the latest release of the world’s most-consulted international university rankings.

The fifteenth edition of the QS World University Rankings, released today by global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, sees six of India’s eight ranked IITs/IISCs improve their rank, with two remaining stable year-on-year.

IIT Bombay has been crowned as the Best University in India in the latest QS World University Rankings.  IIT Bombay  stands at 162^nd spot globally, up 17 places, usurps IIT Delhi (stable in 172^nd position).

Globally, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA, remains the world-leader for a record-breaking seventh consecutive year. QS now rank the world’s top 1000 universities, which hail from 85 different countries, and their flagship website, www.TopUniversities.com is due to be visited over 65 million times this year.

The positive performance recorded by India’s most prominent institutions is symptomatic of a successful year for the country’s higher education system. 24 universities feature from India. 7 improve their rank, 9 remain stable, 5 are newly-ranked – and only three see their position drop.

IIT Delhi is relegated to 3^rd in the country. It is also overtaken by Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, which rises 20 places to 170^th after two consecutive years of drops.

Indian improvements can be primarily attributed to improvements in QS’s reputational indicators, which account for the insights of 83,000 academics and 42,000 employers. 17 of India’s 24 ranked universities improve their rank for Academic Reputation, while 13 improve their rank for Employer Reputation.

IISc Bangalore can boast the world’s second-highest research impact per faculty member. It improves by four ranks in QS’s Citations per Faculty indicator, which measures this aspect of university performance.

In fact, research impact per faculty member is a strength of India’s Institutes of Technology. Four other IITs receive top-100 scores for Citations per Faculty. These are Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee (89.5/100), Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (84.0/100), Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur (76.8/100), and Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (75.6/100).

However, most of India’s other universities are struggling to improve their research impact, relative to global competitors: 12 see their rank for Citations per Faculty drop, while only 7 improve.

India’s universities are also struggling to internationalize in an increasingly-competitive international education market. 16 of 24 see their International Student Ratio rank drop year-on-year.

Top Universities in India as per QS World University Rankings 2019