IoE: UGC selects 7 Public, 7 Private varsities for Coveted tag; IITM, DU, BHU, SNU, Amrita, OP Jindal selected

NEW DELHI, AUGUST 02: As many as seven public and seven private universities have been selected for the Institution of Eminence (IoE) status by the University Grants Commission (UGC). The seven public institutions to get the coveted tag are Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras; IIT Kharagpur; Delhi University; University of Hyderabad; Jadavpur University, Kolkata; Anna University, Chennai and Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi.

The name of Jadavpur University and Anna University will be finalised after consultation with the respective state governments.

The IIT Bombay; IIT Delhi and IISC Bangalore were awarded IoE status when the first list was announced last year.

The seven private universities are Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, VIT Vellore, Jamia Hamdard, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, O.P JINDAL University, Shiv Nadar University and Bharti (Satya Bhani Foundation) have been recommended for the IoE status.

BITS Pilani, Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Jio Institute (Reliance Foundation) were last year recommended for the IoE status.

Among the private universities which have not been able to get the status are, Azim Premji University, Bangalore; Ashoka University, Sonepat; KREA University, Chennai; IIHS (Indian Institute for Human Settlements) and Indian Institute of Public Health, Gandhinagar. These institutions have not been given the status as they were not ranked in the NIRF Rankings 2018 and 2019.

Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune; Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), Aligarh; Tezpur University; Panjab University, Chandigarh and Andhra University, Visakhapatnam have missed out in as their World Ranking was beyond 800 or they did not figure in the QS Rankings 2020.
Each of the 10 public Institution selected as IoE will get financial assistance up to Rs. 1000 Crore over the period of five years under this scheme.

In 2017, the Government of India proposed to award ‘Institutions of Eminence’ tag for around 20 institutions. The selected institutions will be given complete autonomy in running academic programmes, hiring faculty and collaborating with other institutions, to secure their place in top 500 institutions globally. These institutions will enjoy complete autonomy as they will be out of the purview of the University Grants Commission (UGC) and the All India Council for Technical Institution (AICTE).

The UGC constituted a four-member Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) which was entrusted with the task to conduct a thorough review of applications and make recommendations for shortlisting of 20 Institutions of Eminence (IoE). The committee was headed by former chief election commissioner of India N Gopalaswami had members from top academicians from around the world including Tarun Khanna, Jorge Paulo Lemman, Professor at Harvard Business School; Pritam Singh, former director of IIM, Lucknow, and MDI, Gurugram; and Renu Khator, chancellor, University of Houston System.