NIRF - 2016

Program for releasing the India Ranking 2016 based on National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was organized by Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Govt. of India in Hall No. 06 of Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi on 04th April 2016. The ranking framework was designed for five separate categories - Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Architecture and Universities. Dr. Jitender Kumar (Academic Administrator) being NIRF coordinator from the college represented Dronacharya College of Engineering, Gurgaon in this event.

The Program started at 10:00 A.M. with the arrival of Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development, Govt. of India Mrs. Smriti Zubin Irani, who was the chief guest for the day. Welcome address was given by Shri Vinay Sheel Oberoi, Secretary, Department of Higher Education. Mr. Oberoi welcomed the minister, other delegates on the dais, Vice Chancellors and Directors of various Universities & Institutes and NIRF coordinators of various institutes. Mr. R. Subrahmanyam (Additional Secretary, MHRD), Mr. Ved Prakash (Chairman - UGC), Prof. A. D Sahasrabudhe (Chairman - AICTE), Prof. Surender Prasad (Chairman - NBA), Dr. Anil Nassa (Member Secretary - NBA) were present on the dais along with the honorable minister. He told the audience that this is the first survey of its kind in the history of independent India and an unparalleled & unprecedented exercise was done by Prof. Surender Prasad and his team to make it possible.

His welcome address was followed by the presentation of Prof. Surender Prasad who told the audience about the objectives. He said the objectives were:

1. A Pioneering attempt for creating a framework for ranking.

2. To Acknowledge the efforts made by Good Institutes.

3. Facilitating parents and students in choosing an institute.

The parameters of ranking in all five sectors (Engineering, Management, Universities, Architecture and Pharmacy) were chosen by the core committee members.

The Data Collection format was ready by 30th Oct 2015 and was made public on 15th Nov 2015 with an initial deadline of December 01, 2015 which was later extended up to 22nd Jan, 2016. It was expected that around 1500 institutes will participate in this survey but 3800 institutes registered for it and finally 3500 institutes had submitted the data. Data related with research was also collected independently by the committee from Scopus, Web of Science and Indian Science Citation Index. Public perception was also invited through advertisement and more than 60,000 respondents gave 1,50,000 votes. Peer perception was also invited and more than 450 votes were received by the NIRF Team through this.

Data processing of such huge data was done by the experts and both manual & automated inspection was done again and again on the data. Iterations were repeated until inconsistencies became minimal. Validation on the data was done by the academic partners like Elsevier, Thomson Reuters and Indian Science Citation Index. INFLIBNET Ahmedabad & NITTTR Chandigarh helped in processing the data.

Prof. Surender Prasad told that the greatest challenge was to interpret received unusable data from various institutes. He thanked MHRD, Govt of India, NBA, UGC, AICTE, INFLIBNET Ahmedabad, NITTTR Chandigarh, Elsevier, Thomson Reuter and Indian Science Citation Index for their support and help.

Mrs. Kylie Chiew of Elsevier shared her findings with the august audience after the presentation of Prof. Surender Prasad. She told that the research Contribution of India is increasing and India’s contribution in top 10% journals is around 9.4%, 17.1 % Colleges are having Institutional collaboration of some kind but the academic collaboration with foreign universities is only 0.7%. She also informed that Elesvier is also helping USA and CHINA in making their National ranking.

Honorable Minister of Human Resource Development Mrs. Smriti Zubin Irani then gave away the certificates to the top institutes of various categories. In Engineering segment, all the top 10 positions were taken by various IITs. IIT Madras was ranked first followed by IIT Bombay and IIT Kharagpur. In Management out of top 10 positions, top 08 position were taken by IIMs with IMI, New Delhi and IIFM, Bhopal were the exceptions ranked at 07th and 08th position. IIM Bangalore was ranked first followed by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Calcutta. In the university segment the first rank was given to IISC, Bangalore followed by ICT, Mumbai and JNU, New Delhi.

The minister addressed the gathering after giving the certificates to the top institutes. She informed that her Ministry though GYAN project is in touch with more than 400 foreign Academicians who will be coming to India to teach & train the faculty members. She said UGC has been directed to make reforms for Women and persons with disabilities. Duration to complete M.Phil and Ph.D for women and persons with disabilities will be now 03 years and 08 years respectively. Maternity leave will also be given to women researchers. Migration from one university to another will also be made easy for women.

She said that next year’s ranking will be more extensive. She said that more and more autonomy will be given to Private colleges and universities doing well. Any college or university which has been accredited ‘A’ twice by NAAC will be given complete autonomy. Colleges having 12(f) and are accredited with NAAC will be made eligible for various grants under 12(b). She informed the audience that as per the wish of honorable Prime Minister Shri Narender Modi, 20 institutes across country will be identified and developed as world class institutes. At the end, she congratulated all the institutes who participated in NIRF.

Dr. Anil Nassa delivered the Vote of thanks and thanked Mrs. Smiriti Irani for the concept of India Ranking. He thanked Prof. Surender Prasad and his team for releasing the ranking on time (First Monday of April) and for their immense hard work. He thanked Elsevier and other agencies involved in data processing and analytics. At the last he thanked all the participating colleges for participating enthusiastically in this event.