India moves up emerging markets university rankings

India is among the major success stories of the 'BRICS and Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017', with 27 institutions making the top 300. The definitive rankings for the emerging economies, compiled annually by 'Times Higher Education', reflects India's efforts to be counted as a viable education hub seem to be paying off. China is the clear frontrunner with 52 universities in the 'BRICS and Emerging Economies University Rankings 2017' but India was credited with making significant strides. Phil Baty, editor of the rankings, said: “India is making great strides. Its flagship university, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), breaks into the top 15 for the first time this year in 14th place, thanks to improved scores for its teaching environment and research influence, while the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (IIT-B) climbs three places to 26th, its highest ever rank, due to improved scores across all of the five pillars underlying the methodology. “In fact, India could soon overtake Taiwan as the second most-represented country in the top 200 of the table, behind China. Overall, India has 19 universities in the top 200, up from 16 last year, while Taiwan has 21, down from 24.” Peking and Tsinghua universities in China held on to the two top spots for the fourth year running and China has a further four universities in the top 10. Russia's Lomonosov Moscow State University in Russia, University of Cape Town and University of Science and Technology of China complete the top five rankings. The other Indian universities to make the cut this year include IIT Delhi and IIT Kanpur at joint 32; IIT Madras at 35; IIT Roorkee at 62; IIT Kharagpur at 71; Jadavpur University at 99; IIT Guwahati at 106; Tata Institute of Fundamental Research at 107; University of Delhi at 109; Panjab University at 135; Tezpur University at 140; Savitribai Phule Pune University at 143; Aligarh Muslim University at 157; University of Calcutta at 179; Sri Venkateswara University at 186; National Institute of Technology Rourkela at 195; and Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, at 196. The un-ranked 200-300 category include Acharya Nagarjuna University, Amrita University, Andhra University, Osmania University, Amity University, CochinUniversity of Science and Technology, Maharaji Sayaji Rao University of Baroda and Manipal University. While India and China were described as this year's “winners”, the performance of the other BRICS - an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa - was described as “waning”. “With almost double the number of institutions in this ranking than the second most-represented country, India, China looks set to continue to dominate the list in the years to come, while other nations will have to run faster just to stand still,” Baty added. There were gains made overall by Turkey (16 institutions ranked, up from nine last year), Egypt (eight versus three last year) and Pakistan (seven versus two last year) in terms of representation. On the other hand, Thailand (nine versus seven last year), Taiwan (25 versus 24 last year), Hungary (seven versus six last year) and Greece (six versus seven last year) failed to make much progress and lost ground to competitor nations. Countries represented for the first time in the ranking include Latvia, Tunisia, Bulgaria, Croatia, Northern Cyprus, the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The Emerging Markets University Tally