Union HRD Minister virtually releases “India Rankings 2020” for Higher Educational Institutions in New Delhi. The Ministry of HRD has taken this important initiative of creating a National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), which is being used for past five years for ranking of institutions of higher education in different categories and domains of knowledge.
The ranking framework evaluates institutions on five broad generic groups of parameters, i.e. Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR), Research and Professional Practice (RP), Graduation Outcomes (GO), Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) and Perception (PR). Ranks are assigned based on total sum of marks assigned for each of these five broad groups of parameters
Besides, sourcing data on various parameters from applicant institutions, third party sources of data have also been used, wherever possible. Scopus (Elsevier Science) and Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics) were used for retrieving publications and citations data. Derwent Innovation was used for retrieving data on patents. Data retrieved from these sources was shared with the institutions for transparency with a provision to give their inputs.
As a matter of practice, 200 institutions are ranked in engineering discipline, 100 institutions are ranked in Overall, University and College categories, 75 each in Management and Pharmacy, 40 in Medical and 20 each in Architecture and Law and 30 institutions are ranked in Dental for the first time. Additional rankings in suitably bunched forms are also being provided. Data for ranked institutions were painstakingly verified, inconsistencies, contradictions and outliers were screened and identified, which requires a lot of diligence, patience and tactful handling of institutions.