The ranking includes 980 institutions from 70 countries.
India has improved its position in the global higher education ranking, with a record of 31 Indian institutions have found place in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2016-17 issued on Thursday.
Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore has climbed to the highest position till date for an Indian Institute, even as a place in the top 200 list continues to elude the country. IISc now figures in the 201-250 band, up from 251-300 last time.
The ranking includes 980 institutions from 70 countries and the list was subject to an independent audit by professional service firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).
Besides IISc, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay also figure in the top 400. IIT Bombay remains in the same 351-400 band as in last year.
While there are 14 new entrants like Tezpur University from Assam and Amity University, five of the 2015 ranked universities – IIT Kharagpur, IIT Guwahati, Punjab University, Amrita University and Andhra University – saw a drop in their rankings this year. The country also has four new entries in the top 800, which are National Institute of Technology (Rourkela), Sri Venkateswara University, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and Tezpur University.
“India has four new entries in the top 800,” said Phil Baty, editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings.
“The country’s strong performance is partly thanks to the country recognizing the importance of participating in global benchmarking exercises; just last month the government launched a new funding-backed project aimed at catapulting Indian Institute of Technology to the top of world university rankings,” Baty said in a statement.
University of Oxford, UK topped the overall list, pushing California Institute of Technology, US from first position last year to second. Among the top ten, seven are from the US, while three are from the UK. At number nine, ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich) is the lone non-US and –UK institution in the top 10. Two institutions have been placed at the tenth position.
Sri Lanka made its debut in the table with University of Colombo, while seven institutes form Pakistan feature in the list. As a whole South Asia doubled its representation and has claimed 39 places, up from 20 last year.