Key takeaways from the Times World University 2022 ranking

New Delhi:

The University of Oxford in the UK continues to be the top ranked university in the world for the sixth year in a row, according to the latest Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

Colleges in the United States continue to dominate the top 20, with the California Institute of Technology, Harvard University and Stanford University occupying second, third and fourth places, respectively.

The table, with 1,600 universities in 99 countries and territories, is based on 13 indicators that measure four broad areas: Education, Research, Knowledge Transfer and International Perspectives.

This year’s university ranking comes amid the raging Covid-19 pandemic and its impact on the global education system.

Here are some takeaways from this year’s rankings:

1. Universities from 4 countries continue to dominate the Top 200

The United States, United Kingdom, Germany and Australia continue to contribute the most universities to the top 200. With 57 universities, the United States has the most universities in the top. 200. The United Kingdom is far behind with 28 universities. Germany with 22 universities is third in the list while Australia has its 12 universities in the top 200.

2. China’s rise in university rankings

China (People’s Republic of China) dominates the university ranking, with 2 universities in the top 20. Peking University and Tsinghua University share 16th position. Ten Chinese universities rank in the top 200, up from 7 in the past 2 years. Notably, China only had 3 universities in the ranking 10 years ago. According to the report, the increase in the number of quotes related to Covid has also helped the Asian country improve its position in the top 200.

3. Covid-19 research helps universities improve their rankings

According to this year’s report, universities that have published research on Covid-19 have seen a significant increase in their impact on citations. Nineteen universities have seen their citation impact score increase since last year after publishing research related to Covid. Eleven of these universities are in China, while one university is each in Taiwan and Hong Kong. For the uninitiated, the impact of citations highlights the number of times an academic journal article, book, or author is cited by other researchers.

4. No Indian university in the Top 200

Although no Indian university is in the top 200, IISc Bengaluru continues to be the highest ranked Indian institution in the top 350. Five other Indian institutions, including IIT Ropar and IIT Indore, are in the top 600. However , there is good news for Indian institutions too. A record 71 Indian institutes have qualified for this year’s ranking, up from 63 last year and 49 two years ago.

One of the reasons for India’s exclusion from the top rankings appears to be the weak research culture in Indian institutions. “In universities, most or all faculty have to teach an excessive number of courses per semester because teaching is the number one priority. This leaves very little time to focus on high quality research,” explains Dr Vaidyanathan Jayaraman, Dean – UG Programs, SP Jain School of Global Management.

Dr Jayaraman adds that placing a cap on the number of hours per year a faculty must devote to teaching and having a reward system focused on quality rather than quantity of journal publications can help to improve the ranking of Indian universities.