Higher Educational Institutions in India - lessons from the Scimago Institutions Rankings 2020
The 2020 version of the SCImago Institutions Rankings (SIR) has appeared online recently. In this article, we look at the state-wise contributions of Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) to India’s presence in five successive years from the latest SIR, namely from 2016 to 2020. These elite research-intensive institutions belonging to the Higher Education sector are the biggest contributor to India’s academic research output.
The Scimago Institutions Rankings (SIR) (http://www.scimagoir.com/) evaluate the research performance of leading research institutions in the world, using bibliometric data from SCOPUS (www.scopus.com), an Elsevier product. The analysis is based on indicators addressing issues like research performance, innovation outputs and societal impact measured by their web visibility. Typically, a report for a year covers the output over a rolling window of five years previous to that year (e.g. the report for 2020 covers the period 2014-18). The institutions have been chosen on the basis of having published at least 100 scientific documents of any type, i.e., articles, reviews, short reviews, letters, conference papers, etc., during the last year of the respective five year window as collected by Scopus. In the 2020 report, 170, 179, 197, 212 and 241 institutions belonging to the Higher Education sector from India appeared in this elite list for the years 2016 to 2020, showing a very steady and healthy progression (from 5.9% of the world total in 2016 to 6.2% in 2020). Note that the institutions are chosen based only on the research output criteria, i.e. they need to have over 100 published works included in the SCOPUS database during the last year of the period of time. As a result, from year to year, some institutions will fade away while new ones will appear in this elite list.
Table 1 shows the state-wise participation of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2019 for the period 2016 to 2020. In each year the largest share goes to Tamil Nadu accounting for nearly 18% of the total. Karnataka, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh follow behind with less than half the number that Tamil Nadu has.Among the bigger states, Bihar is conspicuously backward; only one HEI from that state appears in this list of elite institutions.
It is meaningful to account for the size effect also. Some states or union territories are much larger in size, both population and gross domestic product. Tables 2 and 3 show this effect. Population is counted in millions and GDP is counted in trillions of rupees. Not surprisingly, the union territories are found at the very top. Tamil Nadu stands out from the rest of the larger states. This is graphically captured in Figures 1 and 2.
(https://www.scimagoir.com/rankings.php accessed between 26 April and 27 April 2020)
State-wise participation of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2020 for the period 2016 to 2020
State-wise participation of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2020 on a per capita basis
State-wise participation of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2020 on a per capita GDP basis
Scatter plot of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2020 on a population basis
Scatter plot of the institutions in the Higher Education sector from India that appear in SIR 2020 on a GDP basis