India delivers mixed performance in Asian university rankings

India's universities delivered a mixed performance due to significant changes at individual institutions in the 2019 Asia University Rankings released in London on Thursday. The rankings, collated annually by 'Times Higher Education', found that the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) held on to its 29th rank as a total of 49 Indian institutions made the cut to be included in the list. The number of entries was up from 42 last year, making India the third most-represented nation after Japan and China.

China also emerged as the Asian rankings leader for the first time this year, with its Tsinghua University pushing the National University of Singapore to second place. "India's performance is mixed, with significant rises and falls for individual institutions," notes the rankings analysis. "However, its flagship, the Indian Institute of Science, remains in 29th place, while the Indian Institute of Technology, Indore joins the list at joint 50th," it said.

The analysis noted that India also has more new entrants (five) among the top 20 newcomers in the table than any other country except Japan (also five). The other Indian universities making the cut to be counted within this year's elite 100 include IIT Bombay and Roorkee at joint 54th, JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research (62), IIT Kharagpur (76), IIT Kanpur (82) and IIT Delhi (91).

The "success story" of the Asian rankings, now in their seventh year, was classed as China, having overtaken Singapore to top the charts and claiming 72 positions overall – up from 63 last year. Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong University and Peking University complete this year's top five behind Tsinghua University and the National University of Singapore in first and second place, respectively.

"This year's table shows that the People's Republic of China is far from the only Asian country to make real higher education progress. Leading universities in Japan and South Korea have made significant gains, many institutions in Malaysia are soaring up the list and there are pockets of excellence in India and Indonesia," Phil Baty, chief knowledge officer at 'Times Higher Education', said. The 2019 ranking comprises 417 universities, expanded from 359 last year, covering 27 countries and regions.

Japan is the most-represented nation, with 103 institutions, and Malaysia makes its debut in the top 40 with the University of Malaya rising eight places to joint 38. The methodology covers a series of performance indicators, with scores attributed for teaching environment, citation impact and international outlook. The first 200 institutions are ranked, with the remaining entries listed in alphabetical order within bands.