Careers360 World-class universities: What can India learn? | Page 16

Global Citation in A&HCI (2010-2012) Stanford University 2.69 There is a need to build a critical mass of people in basic sciences, who research and publish actively. The quantum of knowledge creation from India across the disciplines must increase manifold. Institutions like IISER must turn their attention to actively promote high quality research While no Indian institution makes the top 200, one player new to the rankings, Panjab University, is close in the 226-250 group. Moreover, India now has five representatives in the top 400 - a sign of growing commitment to the global rankings. It is citations that makes the university stands above the rest Prof. Srinivasa SR Varadhan Phil Baty Professor, New York University The University of Texas at Austin Editor at large, THE 1.51 Imperial College London 1.20 University of Washington 1.17 New York University 1.17 University of Pennsylvania 1.16 University of Tokyo Open access journals India is home to nearly 2/3rds of all the open access journals published in the world. Many of them are abstracted and indexed by the big two. But one needs to be very careful in publishing in these global journals. They not only charge a hefty sum (upwards of Rs. 5,000 per paper) but could also be of dubious nature, there by jeopardizing one’s academic standing. For more information see this article published in a leading science journal. (https://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6154/60/ suppl/DC1). Does a citation matter? Yes. It does. In the recent Times Higher Education Ranking of Global Universities, Panjab University, Chandigarh trumped even the venerated IITs primarily because it had better citation count. We discovered that Punjab University’s dynamic physics department researchers were part of the CERN research projects and hence are part of a global network who cite one another’s publications. This proves that networks are the way for other universities. 1.08 The way forward Publications and citations share a symbiotic relationship. As in Punjab University’s case networks is another factor. So Indian universities must focus on both. They must target an increase in the number of faculties. Most good universities have over 40% of their sanctioned positions vacant. One mechanism is to fill these positions with researchers with proved publication record. They could be designated as research professorships with a mandate to publish a certain number of papers in a block of 2 or 3 years. They must also be filled within a stipulated period. The second factor is improving citations. Barring a few seminal works, most works are cited within a closed academic group. So higher the number of other colleagues a faculty collaborates with, better is the achievable citations. As the Panjab university example shows, increased international collaboration is the order of the day. Unless universities act fast, India’s hopes of ever reaching a position within the Top 100 would remain just a pipe dream. 47 Careers 360 January 2014 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1.01 California Institute of Technology 1.00 Columbia University 0.94 Indian Citation A&HCI (2010-2012) University (India) Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore IIT Kharagpur Citation 1.57 1 IIT Bombay 0.2 University of Delhi 0.15 JNU, New Delhi 0.13 TERI School of Advanced Studies, New Delhi 0.5 Source: Arts and Humanities Citation Index (WoS)