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Leading the Emerging Economies Ranking

IIT Kharagpur Ranked 32nd Globally and 2nd in India in Times Higher Education Emerging Economies Ranking 2020, Jumps 24 Places

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IIT Kharagpur has been ranked 32nd in the Times Higher Education Emerging Economies Ranking 2020 making it the top IIT and the second-ranked institution in India. The Institute which was ranked 55th last year has jumped 24 places within 12 months with improvement in the areas of both Teaching and Research. However, the real game-changer has been the Institute’s Industry Income.

Overall India has 56 institutions represented in the ranking with 18 of them featuring in the top 100 and IISc being the top-ranked institution from India. Mainland China is the most-represented nation with 81 institutions with India occupying the second position and Brazil at third with 46 institutions. More than 530 universities feature in this year’s table – almost 100 more than last year – hailing from 47 countries, up from 43.

The ranking is done based on full-time equivalent students at the institute, student-to-staff ratio, international students, female-to-male ratio. The Emerging Economies University Rankings use the 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research (volume, income and reputation); Citations (research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and Industry income (knowledge transfer).

Talking about this stellar improvement, Prof. V K Tewari, Director, IIT Kharagpur said, “IIT Kharagpur in the recent past has taken measures to maintain a globally competitive faculty-student ratio while ensuring best-in-class quality. The faculty and surging number of researchers have also delivered high output and impact in research. These two factors serve as obvious criteria to attract industrial collaborations and grants coming in.”

He also remarked on strategies being undertaken by IIT Kharagpur beyond such rankings.

“We will have to aim towards achievements similar to the global universities of repute which are also considered among the world’s top ten. To achieve those we are actively engaging with all our stakeholders including alumni, faculty, students, industrial and foreign collaborators, and most importantly the ministries of Govt. of India,” he added.

Apart from faculty, student and income data collected from the institutions and research data from Scopus, the ranking methodology also involves extensive surveys with academicians and researchers.

“This is just the beginning and IIT Kharagpur has taken several initiatives to strengthen the academic and research as well as industrial outreach, providing quality education and diverse academic disciplines. The strength being inter-disciplinary schools and centres collaborating with the departments on cutting edge research topics” said Prof. G P Raja Sekhar, Dean, Planning & Coordination.

The Emerging Economies University Rankings includes only institutions in countries classified by the Financial Times Stock Exchange as “advanced emerging”, “secondary emerging” or “frontier”.

“Institutions in the Emerging Economies University Rankings have unique characteristics, and we reflect these in our methodology by adjusting the performance indicators in our gold standard World University Rankings to place them,” states a communique from the ranking body.

The report further reveals that there is a little correlation between rankings performance and higher education investment or university access. However, many of the top performers in terms of the overall score are from Europe’s emerging economies and may have benefited due to regional neighbours with stronger traditions of higher education and research.

Ellie Bothwell, rankings editor and international reporter at Times Higher Education said, “countries’ overall performance in the Times Higher Education Emerging Economies University Rankings is linked more closely to geographic factors than to their level of economic development.”

Fastest Climb in QS Ranks

IIT Kharagpur has emerged as the fastest rising higher educational institution in the QS World University Rankings 2020. The Institute has climbed 14 places to 281 this year from 295 in 2019, 308 in 2018 and 313 in 2017. This is the highest rate of improvement for top-ranked Indian Institutions.

“The Institute has steadily moved up the QS Rankings year after year, thanks to the wonderful performance of its faculty, students, staff, alumni and tremendous support of government and partners. Grateful to Secretary (HE) MHRD for acknowledging our consistent and speedy improvement,” said Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti.

R. Subrahmanyam, IAS, 1985, Education Secretary, Ministry of Human Resources Development, Govt of India, had earlier tweeted congratulating the Institute for its swift rise in the QS World Ranking 2020 stating it as one of the fastest rising institutions in the world rankings. He also tagged the Prime Minister’s Office and Minister of HRD Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank in the tweet.

QS WUR of IIT KGP https://www.topuniversities.com/universities/indian-institute-technology-kharagpur-iit-kgp#wurs

This is the highest ever QS rank achieved by the Institute since it participated the first time in 2012.

“The Institute has maintained a healthy balance between undergraduate and postgraduate students and the ratio of full-time equivalent faculty and students. This was furthered by the remarkable career performance of the recent graduates of the Institute along with the impact of the research projects undertaken by the faculty,” said Prof. M K Tiwari, Dean, Planning & Coordination who heads the initiative of institutional ranking.

The Institute has recently topped in the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking in India.

Feathers in the Cap

Careers 360 India Education Diary

IIT Kharagpur has emerged among the country’s best and as the only IIT to qualify and excel in four disciplines – Architecture (1st), Engineering (4th), Law (4th) and Management (6th), taking on specialized schools in their domains.

Speaking about the feat of excelling in non-engineering categories, Director Prof. P P Chakrabarti emphasised on the uniqueness of each of these specialized disciplines within the IIT system.

“While there are specialized institutions in these subject areas, being part of IIT Kharagpur has catapulted the growth of these disciplines in a matter of a few decades due to the convergence culture of IIT Kharagpur typically focusing on research, multidisciplinary academics and overall career development of students enabling a unique symbiotic approach to excellence.”

IIT Kharagpur is leading in ‘Research and Professional Practice’ and ‘Graduate Outcome’ in the categories of Architecture, Law and Management while holding a competitive rank in Engineering.

“Our research publications and citations are extremely high domestically as evident from Scopus and SCI. However, there is a need for transforming research into industrial and consumer applications. In recent times we have undertaken several initiatives in the forms of Centres of Excellence which are focused towards technology development for industry and giving a thrust to the startup culture,” he said.

The Institute has launched centres of excellence and undertaken projects of national importance in six thrust areas which include Advanced Manufacturing, Intelligent and Smart Transportation, Affordable Healthcare, Digital Convergence, Innovative Infrastructure and Geoscience for Future of Earth with support from the government and industry. The research collaboration and impact thereof can be witnessed across various engineering and other disciplines such as management, law, social sciences, architecture etc.

Also, the multidisciplinary approach has led to specialized thrust areas in academics which is flexible and unique. The course design and curricula of the programs above deliver the country’s crème graduates leading to the best-in-class graduate outcomes.

“Focus on the integrated and growth-oriented strategy adopted by IIT Kharagpur has enabled us to sustain our top position while keeping the societal and industrial needs in mind in launching new courses and also massively using our alumni resources,” says Dean, Planning & Coordination Prof. M K Tiwari.

The Department of Architecture and Regional Planning clearly exhibits this trait with its key area of regional planning addressing the diverse regional planning needs of a country like India which are more in the lines of a subcontinent with intermittent regions within her cities, townships and villages, opines Prof. Joy Sen, Head of the department, who himself is a well-known Regional Planner.

“We focus on regional sciences, regional econometrics and regional programming which enable us to develop inclusive and innovative regional planning models,” remarks Prof. Joy Sen.

Similar is the case with the Rajiv Gandhi School of Intellectual Property Law at IIT Kharagpur which has carved its excellence in the domain of Intellectual Property law while successfully running LLB with specialization in IP, LLM and Doctoral programs.

“I do see a lot of interest in students to take up courses like AI and Law, Energy Law, IP Management, IP and Competition Law, Law of the Sea, Information Technology Law to name a few,” says Prof. Padmavati Manchikanti, Dean of the School. “In fact, some of the thrust areas of the School, AI and Law, Biodiversity Law, Energy Law, Energy Policy and Governance, are unique in the country,” she adds.

Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management which has been ranked 6th following the top 5 IIMs, emphasized at the interdisciplinary elective courses in engineering, science and mathematics offered by other departments, centres and schools at IIT Kharagpur. This sharpens their interdisciplinary knowledge and capability as efficient managers.

“Our students are mostly from engineering background and their career path follows a direction more oriented towards technology management. Keeping in line with the industry needs, we have introduced many new electives in Business Analytics area and also offer electives in emerging topics like Artificial Intelligence and Business Law, Internet of Things Cyber Security, Intellectual Property Rights ,” says Prof. Prabina.

The teaching, learning and resources parameter has been affected in this year’s NIRF rank as well, acknowledges the Director. However, he indicated this has more to do with the high number of students at IIT Kharagpur which has the largest number of academic disciplines with 19 departments, 12 schools and 17 centres of excellence.

“We are further working on recruiting more faculty which will also accelerate up our research initiatives. In the past three years, more than a hundred faculty members have been inducted in the system,” he added.

VGSOM in Top QS Ranks

VGSOM ranked among India’s top 5 in QS 2019 Subject Ranking for Business and Management Studies

IITs which are typically renowned for technology-based education are now leaders in management education as well. This is evident from the QS Subject Ranking 2019 for Business & Management Studies, in which IITs have occupied 5 out of top 10 places. Vinod Gupta School of Management (VGSoM), the business school of IIT Kharagpur which has recently completed its Silver Jubilee, has been ranked 4th among the business schools in India with exceptionally high Citations per Paper and H-index Citations scores.

The QS World University Rankings ranks the world’s top universities in individual subject areas, covering 48 subjects. The rankings aim to help prospective students identify the world’s leading schools in their chosen field in response to high demand for subject-level comparisons. The ranking data is compiled based on QS’s global surveys of academics and employers and research citations data sourced from Elsevier’s Scopus. The citations parameters which include Citations per Research Paper and H-index Citations show the impact of the research in that subject area and the relevance of the subject area.

VGSoM, which was seed funded by IIT Kharagpur alumnus Vinod Gupta, focuses in several multidisciplinary areas of research and development in the Institute as well as collaborative projects. The 25 faculty members of VGSoM publish on an average 75 papers case studies annually in peer-reviewed international journals on relevant areas of management studies which are widely cited. The School is backed by the interdisciplinary engineering, science and mathematics platforms of IIT Kharagpur which present a unique opportunity to its students to pursue electives in various subjects other than Management.

“Our students are mostly from an engineering background and their career path follows a direction more oriented towards technology management. Keeping in line with the industry needs, we have introduced many new electives in Business Analytics area. In fact, we have recently introduced a microcredit course in “personalization in retail” which caters to the changing scenario in e-commerce to a unique experience to individual consumers. Similarly, we have introduced another microcredit course on “alternative investment and portfolio management” complementing the strength of the school in financial analytics. The uniqueness of these courses is that these courses will be delivered completely by industry experts” said Prof. Prabina Rajib, Dean of Vinod Gupta School of Management.

Being part of IIT system, in addition to core management subjects, students of VGSoM undertake courses in other departments, centres and schools at IIT Kharagpur on emerging topics like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, Internet of Things Cyber Security, Intellectual Property Rights. This sharpens their interdisciplinary knowledge and capability as efficient managers.

In the words of the School’s patron and alumnus Vinod Gupta (B.Tech./AG/1967), the MBA program is for students with their academic background in science and engineering an 3-4 years of experience in analytical thinking and decision-making. These attributes make the students of VGSOM stand out maintaining maintain the highest standard of managerial and leadership skills. “I sowed the seeds, with Prof. K L Chopra taking the initiative of setting up the School, the Government of India matching the seed grant and later directors of IIT KGP nurturing it to grow it into a beautiful tree,” he said.

The quality of the students is manifest in a large number of awards won by VGSoM students in competitions organised by reputed management schools and organisations all over the country. With a batch of 120 students graduating every year, VGSoM receives many more offers than what is required to secure 100% placement. The School continues to secure a good number of offers in Operations, Consulting, Analytics, Sales & Marketing and Financial domains.

In addition to its flagship MBA program, another popular program at VGSoM is Financial Engineering which the School offers to Dual Degree B.Tech. and M.Tech. students who aim for a career in finance domain. The School is also part of the multi-institutional Postgraduate Diploma in Business Analytics (PGDBA) offered jointly by IIT Kharagpur, IIM Calcutta and Indian Statistical Institute, wherein the and faculty from VGSoM will engage with the technology aspects of analytics.