IIT Madras Sweeps Top Honours At NIRF And Atal Rankings On Innovation 2019
lNN/Chennai, @infodeaofficial
IIT Madras emerges as the No.1 institute in India in Overall Category and No.1 in Engineering for the fourth consecutive year; It was also ranked No. 1 in Atal Innovation Rankings..
Indian Institute of Technology Madras, on the occasion of its Diamond Jubilee Year, bagged the top honours in National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) 2019 and the very first edition of Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA). And at the same time, the institution has been ranked as the ‘Best Educational Institution’ in the country in the latest edition of National Institutional Rankings Framework (NIRF) 2019, which was released on the 8th April 2019 by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), by the Government of India. The result was announced at Vigyan Bhawan in New Delhi where the top ranked institutions in various categories were bestowed awards by Hon’ble President of India Shri. Ram Nath Kovind. Prof. A. K. Mishra, Dean (Academic Research), IIT Madras, receiving the awards for the past four consecutive years.
ARIIA endeavours to systematically rank education institutions and universities primarily on innovation related indicators. It aims to inspire Indian institutions to reorient their mind-set and build ecosystems to encourage high quality research, innovation and entrepreneurship. More than quantity, ARIIA focuses on quality of innovations and endeavours to measure the real impact created by these innovations nationally and internationally.
Speaking about these remarkable achievements, Prof Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director, IIT Madras, said, “We are delighted that our efforts to constantly improve our course programmes, research, and industry collaboration, as well the creation of a world-class innovation ecosystem in India’s first-of-its-kind Research Park at IIT Madras, are being recognized. We will continue to strive to excel in all these spheres.”
Over the years, IIT Madras has consistently worked and made noteworthy improvements in various sub-parameters of NIRF Rankings such as Student-Faculty ratio and Quality of faculty, number of patents, number and quality of research publications, Sponsored Research & Industrial Consultancy, students placements and higher education, and so on. In fact, these are aligned to the IIT Madras Strategic Plan (https://www.iitm.ac.in/sites/default/files/uploads/strategicplan2020.pdf) that spells out quantified targets for all key pillars of the Institute. These include a flexible curriculum suited to the aspirations of today’s youth, significant increase in faculty strength, a thriving research programme reflected in rapidly increasing publication quality and count, India’s strongest industry-academia collaboration epitomized by the country’s first university-based Research Park, an effervescent start-up ecosystem with nearly a hundred companies being currently incubated, a rapidly expanding programme of collaborations and student exchanges with leading global universities, and an impressive placement record.
The institution has excelled in ARIIA owning to its strong entrepreneurial eco-system that encourages students to become job-generators. The Institute has forums like CFI (Center for Innovation), which provides a platform to the students to ‘walk in with an idea and walk out with a product’. CFI has augmented the ‘tech’ space in the institute wherein projects from CFI have gone on to produce high-profile start-ups and internationally acclaimed competition teams. And to strengthen the innovation ecosystem within the campus, CFI ensures that a pipeline of potential incubates is created through a body called ‘Nirmaan,’ which seeks out students with ideas that have commercial potential and puts them through a one-year programme to refine the ideas, develop products, and formulate business plans.
Furthermore, its Incubation Cell (IITMIC) is India’s leading Deep Technology Startup hub with Innovation and Impact as key differentiators/drivers. IITMIC houses IITM’s Rural Technology & Business Incubator, Bio- and MedTech incubators as well. Together they have incubated over 195 deep tech startups till date in sectors like Manufacturing, IoT, energy/renewables, healthcare/ medical devices, water, edu-tech/skill development, agri-tech, robotics, AI, ML, data analytics, AR/VR, and Enterprise.
Started in 2015, NIRF outlines a methodology to rank educational institutions across the country. The parameters used for ranking broadly cover “teaching, learning and resources, research and professional practices, graduation outcome, outreach and inclusivity, and perception”. Although the broad parameters remained the same this year, there were few changes in some of the sub-parameters. From 2017, besides being ranked under specific disciplines, large institutions were also given a common overall rank. This year as well, educational institutions across the Country were ranked in nine categories – Overall, Universities, Engineering, Colleges, Management, Pharmacy, Medical, Architecture and Law.
