Director of IIT Indore Pradeep Mathur speaks to TOI on making the first
appearance in the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking and his vision to
increase the number of international students
While Indian Institute of Science (IISc) retains the lead, the Indian Institute
of Technology, Indore (IIT Indore) emerged as India’s second highest-ranked
university in an impressive debut entry, in the Times Higher
Education (THE) ranking, announced recently. Making a presence in the
351-400 best universities, the Institute now aims to make a strong
presence in the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) initiated by the Indian
government.
In an exclusive chat with the Education Times, Pradeep Mathur, director of IIT Indore, spoke of how presence in THE ranking
did not come as a surprise to him and the institute. “We had proposed to break into at the international level, two years back.
Since then our focus has been to enhance the overall quality of education, research and attract best faculty members,” said
Mathur.
“We have managed to get seasoned, well-educated foreign-trained faculty members. Around 80% of the faculty members have
been hand-picked during our foreign travels, where we analysed their work vis-a-vis our requirements,” added Mathur, stressing at the need for high-level research in the education sector.
Research excellence was the main reason that IIT Indore topped the list, ahead of old and established IITs in Delhi, Madras and
Mumbai. However, Mathur credits it to ‘no rigid boundary’ ideology followed by the institute.
“We encourage interdisciplinary work in our laboratories which increases the research output. Stressing on the dictum that
teaching and research go hand in hand, we inculcate the research orientation right from the undergraduate level,” said Mathur.
“It’s a myth that India is not at par with the international standard of research. The international ranking system is based on
unique parameters. We need to attract international students at master’s and post-doctoral level to remain in the race,” added
Mathur.
At present, two students have been enrolled in the master’s programme and every year around 15-20 students come to IIT
Indore for short-term courses. “If we look at the top twenty universities in the world, the number of international students is
approximately 30%. We gradually plan to increase our intake of international students to 5-10% by 2020,” he said IIT Indore that came into existence in 2009, battled several hurdles such as not having land allotted for the first four years and
operating out of temporary, but that did not deter in building state-of-the-art infrastructure to felicitate research