Once again, PU nowhere in Round University Ranking

Amarjot Kaur

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, December 4

From the copper-bottomed first two years of Panjab University (PU) in the Round University Ranking (RUR), which was first published in 2010, to its abysmal absence from this year’s RUR, has the PU lost out on its global rank?

Released today, the RUR-2019 data shows 820 universities from 74 countries participated in the ranking. However, there is no sign of the PU on their list since 2016. Back then, it ranked 578th and fared better than Amity University and the Birla Institute of Technology & Science (BITS), Pilani. Not just that, the PU had paved its way to the nine Indian institutes on the RUR list when 700 leading world universities were evaluated in the 2016 edition, including 91 higher educational institutions of the brics economies.

This year, 14 Indian institutes have been rated by the RUR. In a first for India, this time, the Indian Institute of Science, ranked 84, has made it to RUR’s top 100 institutes across the world or the ‘diamond league’. The RUR introduced a system of the leagues, resembling the Olympic medals system and each league embraces a hundred of universities. There is diamond league (rank 1-100), golden league (rank 101-200), silver league (rank 201-300), bronze league (rank 301-400), copper league (rank 401-500) and world league (501+).

The raw data for the RUR ranking is provided within a special annual survey run by Thomson Reuters - Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).

In 2010, the PU bagged the 439th rank and was bracketed in the ‘Copper League’ of the ‘World University Ranking’ category. That year, about 11 Indian institutes made it to the RUR, including IIT Delhi, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Madras, JNU, AMU, Jadavpur University. Besides, Panjab University was placed above IIT Guwahati, Manipal University and BITS-Pilani.

In 2011, PU’s rank fell to 458. Yet, it squeezed into RUR’s ‘Copper League’. That year, RUR rated 12 Indian institutes and the PU ranked above Manipal University and BITS-Pilani.

Tracing a downward graph, PU, in 2012, slipped not only to the 543rd rank but also from ‘copper league’ to the ‘world league’. Among 14 Indian institutes on RUR’s list that year, the PU ranked better than BITS-Pilani and ITM University. In 2013, PU slipped further down the RUR and was rated 608 globally. A year later, the PU flexed its muscles and sprang up to the 590th rank, this time ahead Manipal University, Amity University and BITS-Pilani.

With 21 Indian institutes on RUR’s list, in 2015, the PU was ranked 629. It was rated higher than Indian School of Mines, Manipal University, University of Delhi, Jamia Millia Islamia, University of Calcutta, ITM University, Devi Ahilya Vishwavidyalaya, Amity University and BITS-Pilani.

Indicators and weightage

Overall ranking evaluates instituional performance by 20 indicators which are grouped in four dimensions — Teaching (40%), Research (40%), International Diversity (10%), Financial Sustainability (10%)

Subject rankings

In rankings by six broad subject areas, RUR uses the same 20 indicators grouped in four dimension areas. What differentiate these two sets of rankings is the raw data used in each of the group. 

List of subject rankings: Humanities, life sciences, natural sciences, technical sciences, social sciences and medical sciences