Updated on: Friday, August 16, 2013
Bangalore-headquartered Indian Institute of Science (IISc) has once again made the country proud. It is the only Indian institute that has made it to the top 500 in the 2013 Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) which was released by the Center for World-Class Universities at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. The 104-year-old entity is ranked in the 301-400 category.
IISc, which was ranked 45 in the world ranking for Chemistry last year, is on 43rd spot this time. The premier institute has shown a dramatic improvement in Computer Science as well. From 101-150 in 2012, it is now listed in the 51-75 bracket. In Math, however, it retained last year's ranking in the 151-200 slot.
Harvard tops the global ranking, followed by Stanford and University of California, Berkeley. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and Cambridge University are in fourth and fifth position respectively, in the ARWU rankings.
Stanford tops in Computer Science, followed by MIT (97.8 score) and University of California (89.4). In Mathematics, it's Princeton University which is in numero uno position, followed by Harvard and University of California, Berkeley.
Harvard rules the roost in Physics, Chemistry and Economics. MIT and University of California, Berkeley, are the second and third best to study Physics, while University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford share the top three in Chemistry.
In Economics, it is University of Chicago which has grabbed second rank. MIT is in the third position.
ARWU uses six objective indicators to rank world universities, including the number of alumni and staff winning Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals, number of highly cited researchers selected by Thomson Scientific, number of articles published in journals of Nature and Science, number of articles indexed in Science Citation Index - Expanded and Social Sciences Citation Index, and per capita performance with respect to the size of an institution. More than 1000 universities are actually ranked by ARWU every year and the best 500 are published on the web.