Hyderabad Central University bags second rank in India's top govt institutions

Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad (UoH) has been ranked 2nd among India’s top government universities by India Today and this was published in the magazine issue dated August 10, 2020. Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is in the first place. UoH has been ranked among the top based on the survey conducted by the Marketing and Development Research Associates (MDRA). It examined the country’s universities in four streams, general (arts, science and commerce), technical, medical and legal. Universities that offer postgraduate courses in these streams were considered for the survey.

Responding to the rankings, UoH Vice-Chancellor Prof. Appa Rao Podile said, “It’s wonderful to see the university is recognised for its meritorious work and research contributions. Moving up from being 5th in 2017; 3rd in 2018 and proceeding to 2nd in 2019 as well as 2020, it is going to be a challenging task for all of us to perform better. I am confident we will be able to keep up with this growth. Being recognised as an Institution of Eminence, UoH will continue to focus on providing quality education and research along with the state-of-the-art infrastructure which will propel us into the league of the best universities in the world.”

The India Today Best Universities survey, a list of 995 universities was generated which also had 155 institutes of national importance. The methodology by INDIA TODAY knowledge partner, MDRA, has set several milestones.

During objective ranking, MDRA carefully attuned 120-plus attributes to provide the most comprehensive and balanced comparison of universities. These performance indicators were clubbed into five broad parameters, reputation & governance, academic & research excellence, infrastructure & living experience, personality & leadership development and career progression and placement. Perceptual survey was carried out among well-informed 300 respondents (32 V-Cs, 75 directors/ deans/ registrars, 193 senior faculty (professors/ HoDs) across 30 cities.

Finally, over 130 universities were ranked. National and zonal rankings were taken from their respective field of experience and given 75 per cent and 25 per cent weightage respectively. Universities were also rated on a 10-point rating scale on each of the five key parameters.

While computing objective scores, it was ensured that aggregate data alone was not used. The total scores arrived from the objective and perception survey was added in a ratio of 50:50 for a total combined score. A large team comprising researchers, statisticians, analysts and survey teams worked on this project from December 2019 to July 2020.