The Times Higher Education released its list of Asia Rankings 2014. Japan dominates the list, with the University of Tokyo at number 1. Ten Indian universities have made it to this list. Phil Baty , editor, Times Higher Education, who was in New Delhi for the launch, tells Bincy Mathew what this means for the future of Indian universities.
How has Japan managed to be the dominant country in Asia rankings?
We have seen universities play a major role in Japan’s fantastic economic success with the growth of its high-tech sector and industry sector. After World War II, universities were integral to Japan’s major economic booming times. They have had a real head-start over some of other Asian nations that have taken longer to reach economic maturity. But, things are changing for Tokyo. It has had a weak economy for quite some time. Its universities have been suffering from fund cuts and they are not very international in their outlook. China and South Korea are increasingly doing better and in future have the potential to overtake Japan.
Ten institutes from India have made it to the top 100 list. University of Delhi has not made it. Your comments.
There is a dramatic improvement in India’s representation in the top 100 compared to last year. The main reason for this change is the increased engagement by the Indian institutions. We have seen Indian universities submit data in much higher numbers this year. India is finally taking internationalisation seriously. Its universities are finally embracing and engaging with the Times Higher Education rankings .
We have seen Indian universities in the past, reluctant to take part in the process. But Indian universities are now realising this is a helpful and valuable exercise. It’s wonderful we’ve had a direct endorsement from the Indian government to say that Indian universities should give us their data and start to benchmark themselves against trusted global standard set by THE.
Delhi University submitted their data for evaluation, but missed the deadline for this assessment. So, we’ll include them in the World Rankings in October. So we will have Delhi University, University of Hyderabad, Amity, Manipal and other institutions on board for the rankings in future. There’s a great possibility of an Indian university making it to this list.
What are the areas of strength of Jadavpur University?
Jadavpur University has a very good score for research impact, which is the highest weightage of all the ranking indicators. It has a very good score for citation impact. This shows how influential a university’s research publications have been. We analyse many millions of research paper citations published over a five-ear period, and obviously the most influential and ground-reaking research gets cited the most.
On the basis of which indicator did JNU break into the top 100?
We require universities to have high performance right across the board. In the case of JNU, its strongest indicator is teaching. It scores highly in teaching environment — faculty-student ratio, teaching reputation, resources available to the institution and how research intensive the teaching environment is.
Is there any other university that has not made it to this ranking, but has potential to make it in future?
The Indian Institute of Science is a strong performer... But its constitution does not at the moment qualify it for inclusion because it is a graduate-only institution. It has now begun to admit undergraduates, so in future we’ll be able to analyse it in the rankings.
