IIT Ropar 2nd top in India in the World University rankings 2020
KS Diwan/ royalpatiala.in/ Ropar
IIT Ropar has made an attractive debut in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2020 released on September 11. It has bagged the first rank among the 56 Indian institutes that have made it to the list of best universities of the world this year. It is one of the new IITs and was established in 2008.
IIT Ropar is the highest-ranked Indian newcomer in this year’s table, ensconced in the 301-350 band with its very high score for citation impact and its reasonably strong showing on the industry income measure. Professor S.K. Das says, “The institute has established key areas of research focus, which include water, cancer research, environmental issues, electric vehicles, microgrid technology, artificial intelligence and big data, and the treatment of drug addiction. This is a proud moment for our institute which is the result of the hard work our faculty, students, scholars and staff have put. We have expanded and created infrastructure last few years, brought talents from the entire country and world and financed research initiatives.”
Meanwhile, a new research collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Abdul Latif Jameel Water and Food Systems Lab and a new Indo-Taiwan joint research centre on artificial intelligence and machine learning are already “showing results in terms of research quality and global outreach”, he says.
Professor Das attributes these improvements to a string of government initiatives aimed at boosting the number of researchers and the quality of research in the country. “Higher education in India is undergoing substantial change,” he says.
The ranking includes over 1,300 universities from 92 countries. Rankings are done across 13 performance indicators grouped into five areas: teaching (the learning environment), research (volume, income, reputation), citations (research influence), international outlook (staff, students and research) and industry outcome (knowledge transfer).
The Institute is spread over 500 acres of land on the bank of river Satluj. The total students in the campus are 2003 and 11 Departments. The faculty strength is 163.
