London/Mumbai:  India has emerged as the star performer among 50 emerging economies in Times Higher Education – BRICS & Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017, which was released on 30 November 2016. India performs well by increasing its share of the top universities in the ranking with 27 in the top 300. India’s performance is led by the Indian Institute of Science (14th), which breaks into the top 15 for the first time. However, the dominance of China in the Annual Rankings continues as 52 Chinese institutes are in the ranking overall, the highest density of leading institutions in the developing world.

Chinese institutions dominate, taking six of the top 10 places – led by Peking University (1st) and Tsinghua University (2nd) – and 52 in the ranking overall. Brazil has 25 universities in the ranking, up from 14 last year, but its star performer, the University of São Paulo (13th), drops out of the top 10. It is a mixed picture for Russia with 24 ranked institutions beating last year’s 15. Lomonosov Moscow State University holds onto its third place overall.

IISC Bangalore leads the best universities list in India with overall ranking of 14 while Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay is next highest ranked institute with 26 in the overall tally. IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur are jointly placed at 32 position in the overall ranking tally. IIT Madras placed at 35 place in the THE BRICS & Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017.

Mr Phil Baty, editor of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, said “This ranking uses the same 13 rigorous and demanding performance indicators as the overall World University Rankings. Institutions must demonstrate high standards of performance across teaching, research, international outlook and knowledge transfer and compete with other leading research universities across emerging economy countries.”

 “India is also making great strides. Its flagship university, the Indian Institute of Science, breaks into the top 15 for the first time this year in 14th place, thanks to improved scores for its teaching environment and research influence, while the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay climbs three places to 26th, its highest ever rank, due to improved scores across all of the five pillars underlying the methodology”, added Mr Baty.

Mr Baty commented that India could soon overtake Taiwan as the second most-represented country in the top 200 of the table, behind China. Overall, India has 19 universities in the top 200, up from 16 last year, while Taiwan has 21, down from 24…

The report highlighted that both China and India have improved their standing, the performance of the other BRICS nations is waning, largely due to increased competition as a result of expanding the list to rank 300 universities from 41 countries, up from 200 institutions in 35 nations last year.

The Times Higher Education BRICS and Emerging Economies Rankings 2017 is a unique global ranking which examines the leading universities in 50 emerging and frontier economies – including the “BRICS” economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.  The 50 emerging and frontier economies are taken from FTSE Global Equity Index Series Country Classification, September 2016 update.

BRICS & Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017 – Top 30

Source: Times Higher Education