Bengaluru/London: The Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru remains the country’s top university, but its global ranking has dropped two notches to 152 in the latest QS World University Rankings 2016-17 released on Tuesday, September 6.

Founded in 1909 as a result of the joint efforts of Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata, the Government of India and the Maharaja of Mysore, IISc’s global ranking last year was 147, also just within the top 150 universities in then world. All the other Indian universities that make the cut within the top 400 on the list are the coveted Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) – Delhi (185), Bombay (219), Madras (249), Kanpur (302), Kharagpur (313) and Roorkee (399).

Four Indian institutions remain among the world’s top 100 for research impact, as measured by QS’s citations per faculty metric, one fewer than in the 2015/16 instalment. However, IISC Bangalore is now ranked as the world’s 11th-best research institution according to the citations per faculty scoring.

“This year’s rankings imply that levels of investment are determining who progresses and who regresses. Institutions in countries that provide high levels of targeted funding, whether from endowments or from the public purse, are rising. On the other hand, some Western European nations making or proposing cuts to public research spending are losing ground to their US and Asian counterparts,” said Ben Sowter, head of research at QS.

The global rankings

1: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

2: Stanford University

3: Harvard University

4: University of Cambridge

5: California Institute of Technology

6: University of Oxford

7: University College of London

8: ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)

9: Imperial College, London

10: University of Chicago