NIRF Rankings 2018: Research led institutions to Numero Uno Position

NEW DELHI, APRIL 4: The Indian Institute of Science Bengaluru, The Indian Institute of Technology Madras, The All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences, the National Law School of India University Bengaluru are the institutions that have been Ranked best in different categories in the recently released NIRF ranking 2018.

One of the most important reason which has led to emergence of these institutions among the top in their respective category is their emphasis on 'Research'. The IISc has a score of 91.08 in “Research and Professional Practices while that of AIIMS New Delhi is 100. The IIT Bombay has the best Research Score among engineering institutions, it has scored 96.04 and has come second in the Ranking. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) which conducts the Rankings and collects data from various institutions has given 30 percent weight-age to Research and Professional Practice (RP) being adapted by the institutions.

Retaining top position

The IISc Bengaluru is recognised all over the world for its high quality research and is also among the few institutions from India that has found top places in the leading international Rankings. In This years NIRF Ranking it has scored 82.16 thus retaining the number one position.

The other Institute that has consistently performed well in the national and international Rankings is the IIT Madras which is at the second spot in the Overall Ranking and has, for the third consecutive year, emerged as the top-Ranked Engineering Institute in the Country and research once again has been an important factor which helped it retain top position, its Research score is 91.44.

The IIT Madras leads in research as well as industry collaboration anchored by its hugely successful Research Park. Its students and scholars get placed in the best companies and research institutions worldwide.

Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director IIT Madras speaking exclusively to Careers360 said, “We are delighted to be adjudged as the best institution and we have a strategic plan in place and research in the key area in this and we keep pursuing that. Being among the one of the largest engineering institutions we are working in all the areas including data-science. We have a new Centre now, Robert Bosch Centre to address data sciences and artificial intelligence, we have also started a new centre on Ports. We are collaborating with various international universities and MNCs to establish centre of excellence in our institute.”

New Entrants

The NIRF also came with the three new segments this year with introduction of Medicine, Architecture and Law. The AIIMS New Delhi has been adjudged as the top medical school in the countrywide with an overall score of 90.71.

AIIMS is followed by Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research, Chandigarh and Christian Medical College in Vellore. All the three institutions have been doing path-breaking reserach in the field of medical scince and coming up with new innovation leading to better and affordable health care facilities.

Dr Jagat Ram Director PGIMER, Chandigarh said, “We are very excited to be adjudged as the second best institution in the medical field. This has happened because of the good work the institute has been doing in the area of patient care, in providing quality education and the research work. It is a proud moment for all of us and we will continue to work and strive forward.”

Law has been another category introduced this year and as expected the National Law Universities bagged the top spots. Though they are relatively new these institutions have been giving greater emphasis on research and publications, the NLU Delhi has the best Research score of 52.56 among all NLUs.

The NLSIU Bengaluru has been ranked as the best law school with score of 75.79 followed by NLU Delhi and Nalsar Hyderabad.

Prof R. Venkata Rao, Vice Chancellor, NLSIU Bengaluru speaking on the achievement said, “This is fantastic achievement and this has happened because of our symbiotic relation with other National Law Schools, we have very high level interaction with other institutions and because of this we learn from them and keep the standards of education high. This is a victory of entire law school family.”

“I think this will be wonderful for NLU Delhi because the mandate for which we work and our primary goal is to excel in research and we will carry that forward and the best is yet to come. We have a long way to go and we will further strengthen our research and apart from good education and research we have to produce a group of lawyers who are technically sound, professionally competent and socially relevant,” said Dr Ranbir Singh, Vice Chancellor NLU Delhi.

Top in Management

There was not much surprise in the Management Rankings as the top three positions have been shared among the three leading IIMs, the IIM-Ahmedabad has been ranked number one followed by IIM-Bengaluru and IIM-Calcutta.

An important factor factor in this year’s management ranking has been that the above mentioned three institutions have scores very close to each other. The IIM-A has a score of 79.18, IIM-B which is at second positions has 77.33 and the IIM-C has 77.08.

The IIM-B has scored 100 in 'Perception' and 97.95 in 'Graduation Outcome' and is way ahead of many of the other B-Schools in the country. Prof. G Raghuram, Director, IIM Bangalore said, “It feels good to be among the top, though we still have to see how the parameters are being assessed, many of the IITs have moved into the top category which shows that research is being given more importance. If you see overall education the IIMs and IITs are competing so.”

Speaking about his plans for the institute he said that we will continuously work for our stakeholders, Rankings are one thing but it is important to remain focussed and we will work for our stakeholders the students, employers and the research community.

The NIRF Rankings started in 2015, outlines a methodology to rank educational institutions across the country. The parameters used for ranking broadly cover “Teaching, Learning and Resources,” “Research and Professional Practices,” “Graduation Outcome,” “Outreach and Inclusivity,” and “Perception”.

Although the broad parameters remained the same this year, there were significant changes in some of the sub-parameters. From 2017, besides being ranked under specific disciplines, large institutions were also given a common overall rank. This year, educational institutions across the Country were ranked in nine categories – Overall, Universities, Engineering, Colleges, Management, Pharmacy, Medical, Architecture and Law.