Research collaborations can boost India's rankings: Study

Kolkata, Jan 1 (IANS) Indian universities and research institutions failed to grab top slots in the 'Top 100 university rankings for BRICS Countries and Other Emerging Economies (2015)' report, highlighting the need for stronger collaborations, a statement said Thursday.

India's varsities and research institutions account for 10 percent in the rankings for leading 100 varsities, but did not make the cut for the top 10, said a release by Elsevier.

In the study, India's top institutes only rank 25 or higher. As many as 11 institutes make the cut in the rankings.

While Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore clinched the 25th spot, Indian Institute of Technology-Bombay and Roorkee ranked at 37th and 38th with Panjab University succeeding them at the 39th spot.

In between are IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Madras, IIT-Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, IIT-Kanpur, Aligarh Muslim Univesity and IIT-Guwahati at the fag end at 98.

The findings show academic-corporate collaborations have a very strong, positive influence on citation impact: five times for IISc, 3-12 times for IITs and 14 times for India overall.

These results underscore the importance of collaborations to enhance India's research outputs, said Michiel Kolman, Senior Vice President, Global Academic Relations Elsevier, in a statement.

"Collaboration (international or corporate-university) can significantly boost India's research performance and will impact rankings positively. Leading science nations, such as US, China and EU have strong high-impact collaboration potential for India," he said.

The findings and conclusions of the report will be presented by Kolman Jan 4 at the 102nd Indian Science Congress in Mumbai.