VIT forms panel to go up in global rank list

Talking to DT Next, he said, “This follows VIT University being ranked first among private engineering institutions by the NIRF (National Institution Ranking Framework) three years in succession.” With the university already leading IITs and the IISc in the number of publications, Viswanathan said, “Our aim is now to be one of the top 200 universities globally. We are aiming to get into the top 200 universities as accredited by either the Times higher education ranking or QS.” 

Stating that the committee members met regularly to study the parameters on which successful universities were ranked globally, Viswanathan said, “What surprises us is that IITs and the Sriperumbudur-based Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Empowerment are labelled institutions of national importance without going through any accreditation, which in India is either through NBA or NAAC. They are the only institutions to do this globally as even Harvard, Yale and Stanford universities, undergo this process regularly.” 

“This honour is granted not only to established IITs, but also to those who started fresh and which function from borrowed premises,” Viswanathan added. As international ranking includes criteria like foreign students and foreign teachers, the Union government’s move ensured that India’s top technical institutions avoided any embarrassment in this regard, he remarked.