Bengaluru: The Karnataka State Higher Education Council (KSHEC) on Friday, released the inaugural edition of the Karnataka State Universities Rating Framework (KSURF). The KSURF is a comprehensive assessment of all the state, private and deemed universities in Karnataka.

“The assessment of universities will help Karnataka government to prepare a plan for providing infrastructure for the state government universities. It will help the students to select good and efficient universities for higher studies,’’ Minister for Higher Education Basavaraj Rayaraddi told reporters here.

Karnataka is the first among all the states to undertake a detailed audit and evaluation of universities. It is an effort similar to the central government’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

The Karnataka government, through KSURF, aims to assess and identify the strengths and weaknesses of the universities in the state, and help them improve on their deficiencies. An annual exercise, the KSHEC would rate universities under regionally-relevant yet globally-flavoured parameters such as research excellence, innovation, teaching excellence, employability, infrastructure and inclusiveness and social impact.

“We have engaged ICARE Ratings, the research and analysis division of the Indian Centre for Academic Rankings and Excellence. The work began during last July. There are 51 universities in Karnataka. Around 40 universities were assessed. Twelve universities are yet to submit the required documents for assessment,’’ S A Kori, Executive Director, Karnataka State Higher Education Council, said.

In the inaugural edition of the ratings, under the established universities category, Manipal University has been rated top for innovation and research quality, Visvesvaraya Technological University for improvement in research, Gulbarga University for research productivity, Bangalore University for research citations, KLE University for industrial memorandum of understandings.

In the young universities category, JSS University and NITTE University scored high on teaching excellence and international diversity.

Among the new universities established in the last five years, M S Ramaiah University has been rated very high on patents, PSE University on domestic diversity, Reva University on infrastructure.

In the specialist university category, University of Agricultural Sciences, Bangalore is rated at the top for inclusiveness and social impact whereas Kannada University and University of Agricultural Sciences, Dharwad score high on the faculty with PhD parameter.