QS Rankings – The Big Jump(?)

The QS World University Rankings were released in the past week, and IIT Kanpur was ranked at 277^th place in 2022 compared to the 350^th rank in the 2021 edition. Despite achieving quite significant growth in the past year, it is important to notice how the institute’s rank had fallen from 291 in 2020 to 350 in 2021. The last couple of years have been quite a roller coaster for us, and we at Vox Populi aim to analyse the recent performances of IITK with its leading sister IITs .

QS, which stands for Quacquarelli Symonds, is one of the world’s leading provider of services, analytics and insight to the global higher education sector. The QS World University Rankings have grown to become the world’s most popular source of comparative data about university performance in the past decade. The parameters used to assess the performances of institutes include Academic Reputation, Employer Reputation, Faculty-Student ratio, Citations per Faculty Ratio and the International Faculty and Student ratios and calculates scores out of 100 in each of them. The break-up of the weightage for each of these parameters is shown below to put things into better perspective.

Academic Reputation

The QS Rankings use the Academic Reputations of institutes as the primary metric, and this criterion holds 40% of the total score. Using a combination of purchased mailing lists, applications and suggestions, the QS survey asks active academicians across the world about the top universities in their respective fields. For each academic domain, the respondents are asked to list institutions (excluding their own) which they consider excellent for research in the given area. 

Academic Reputation has been one criterion where IITs majorly fall behind in the rankings and have to work upon. The trends among the top 5 IITs have remained constant, IITB taking the lead, followed by IITD, IITM and then IITK and IITKGP. With a score of 30.1/100, IITK is ranked 6^th in India, with Delhi University being a notable leader at 4^th place with a score of 35.3. IIT Kanpur has seen a falling trend in the Academic Reputation numbers in recent years, but the slight improvement in 2022 has brought the score to 30.1, the score still remains far behind those of IITB and IITD.

Employer Reputation

The criterion of Employer Reputation focuses on the employability of the graduating students. This criterion involves employers naming up to 10 domestic and 30 international institutions that they consider excellent for recruiting graduates. They also classify the disciplines from which they prefer to recruit. By examining the intersection of these two questions, QS judges a measure of excellence in a given domain.

The IITs have enjoyed having one of the best Employer Reputation scores in the country. However, when compared to other IITs, IITK does not perform as well. While IITK jumped from a score of 35 in 2021 to 41.1 in the 2022 rankings, the scores in this domain have been relatively lower than IITB (79.6) and IITD(70.8). Thus, while IITK overtook IITKGP this year, there is still scope for improvement as our scores lag significantly compared to our sister IITs.

Faculty Student Ratio

The Faculty/Student Ratio criterion measures the quality of educational content delivered to students and a reduction in the teaching burden on the faculty members of the institution. This criterion holds 20% of the total score, and thus, it plays a pivotal role in determining the QS Ranking of any institution.

IITB has consistently had a high Faculty/Student Ratio among all IITs, even though it dropped down from 36.2 in 2021 to 32.5 this year. IITK stands at the fourth spot, with a meagre score of 18.3, close to half of IITB’s score. IITK has witnessed a string of continual low scores in this domain, with the score not crossing the 20/100 mark in the last five years. While this is a parameter where the increasing number of students has made it challenging to keep up with the faculty numbers, the meagre numbers compared to IITB, IITD and IITM point to how recruitment of faculty at IITK has been relatively slower.

Citations per Faculty

Citations are measured by taking the total number of citations received by all papers produced by an institution across five years by all the faculty members at that institution. This means that for the 2019 score, data from 2014-2018 would be considered. All citations data is sourced using Elsevier’s Scopus database, the world’s largest repository of academic journal data.

 
After scoring exceptionally low in 2018, IITK showed increasing scores in 2019 and 2020. This was, however, followed by a sharp decline in 2021. Redeeming itself in this domain, IITK scored 81.6/100, which is the 4^th best score among IITs, which IITG leads at 94.8, IITR at 88.8 and IITKGP at 88. While there has been debate in the academic circles about whether Citations per faculty is a better metric than Citations per paper, IITK’s scores, though a little erratic, have ensured that the institute upholds its reputation of being one of India’s finest research institutes.

International Faculty Ratio and International Student Ratio

These parameters take into account the global outlook for the institutions operating in the worldwide education sectors. In addition, each university is assessed based on its international reputation, attracting international students and faculty from around the globe. The factors contributing to this include providing both students and staff with a multinational environment, exchange of best practices and beliefs, and inculcating in them global awareness, a soft skill that is in great demand among employers. Both of these criteria contribute to 5% of the overall score.

These parameters have been sore spots for Indian Institutes for an extended period. In terms of International Faculty, none of the leading IITs have been able to get a score > 2/100, which explains how Indian colleges have not had sufficient participation from International faculty members. Although with a score of 1.3/100, IITK performed better than IITD(1.2) and IITM(1.2), it was still behind IITB(1.5) and IITKGP(1.5). When it comes to International Students, the picture isn’t much different. IITK, scoring a 1.2/100 in this parameter, is only ahead of IITKGP(1.1) in comparison to leading IITs. While there is a need to admit more International Students, the highly competitive JEE examination has more or less closed the doors for international students at the undergraduate level. While more and more international students are being admitted to the Masters’ and PhD programmes, the numbers are still relatively meagre. Hopefully, with the advent of more academic programs and diverse departments, these numbers will witness an upward surge in the coming years.

With the institute celebrating the jump of 73 ranks in 2022, it is important for us to also take cognizance of the fact that there is still a long way to go. The gaps between the scores of the leading IITs and our institute have widened steadily. Steady ranks outside of the Top 250 have meant that the institute’s global image hasn’t improved much in the last half-decade and with the number of students increasing over the years, the corresponding change in the academic and non-academic infrastructure remains to be absent. It is imperative to take note of these issues and strive for capitalizing on the chances for positive change. Hopefully, the upward trend in the 2022 rankings can be replicated in the coming years, and we might witness IITK competing shoulder-to-shoulder with the leading Indian institutes in all aspects.

Written by: Rose Agarwal, Tulika Shukla, Kartikeya Raghuvanshi, Atharva Dehadraya, Ayush Anand

Infographics: Dev Barbhaya, Sanika Gumaste, Ritam Jana, Navaneeth Srinivasan, Bhavya Sikarwar

Thumbnail: Vijay Bharadwaj, Raj Varshith

Edited by: Aryan Pandeya