In 2011, I created a ranking of Indian universities based on productivity in the social sciences. Here is the original ranking. Look out for the new ranking forthcoming in the next few months.

Rankings of Social Science Research Productivity of Indian Universities, Colleges and Institutes

Below you will find rankings of Indian universities and institutes based on productivity in social science research. The universities and institutes are ranked in four categories: (1) sociology, demography and family studies, (2) economics, (3) psychology, and (4) business and management. The rankings presented here are based on a limited set of variables, namely the number of peer-reviewed journal articles produced by an institution and the number of citations these articles received.

The data used for the rankings are derived from Thomson’s ISI Web of Knowledge. The raw data included any article published in one of 3015 social science journals indexed by ISI (including Indian journals as well as international journals) by an author affiliated with a university or institute located in India between 2000 and 2010. These data were subset to include only those institutions that had more than 20 publications in any social science category during this ten-year time frame; the final sample consists of 61 universities and institutes. Finally, the institutions were ranked according to their research productivity (citations and publications) in the four categories mentioned above.

Omissions and Caveats

There is no doubt that these rankings are limited in important ways. Most significantly, the measures I use do not incorporate research output in the form of books, book chapters, journals not indexed by ISI, peer-reviewed conferences, as well as other academic writing such as case studies. Excluding these output venues reduces the value of the rankings in some respects, but also makes comparing universities straightforward and systematic. Moreover, peer-reviewed journal publications and citation counts are universally accepted measures of academic productivity and are clearly valuable and informative.

The rankings also do not incorporate other information—such as academic placements of doctoral students, quality of instruction, facilities, and peer quality—that might be useful for prospective graduate students.  It is advised that you learn more about the universities and institutes you are considering before making any choices.

Reason for the rankings

The rankings were created for my own use; I wanted to find out which Indian universities were producing the most (and, if possible, the most interesting) social science research.   The rankings are therefore my attempt at making sense of the social science ecosystem in India and not an attempt at producing a definitive and thorough ranking.

Measures:

Int. Collab (International Collaboration):  The proportion of articles co-authored with international collaborators (e.g. co-authors of the focal Indian author located outside of India).  For example, in the Sociology, Demography and Family Studies category, nine percent of all articles published by Jawaharlal Nehru University were co-authored with scholars affiliated to institutions located outside of India. Whereas sixty-seven percent of all articles from the Indian Institute of Management – Bangalore were co-authored with international collaborators. This measure is not incorporated into the ranking. It is provided only for informational purposes.

Avg. Cite (Average citations):  This measure is the sum of the citations received by the articles produced by an institution divided by the total number of articles. This measure attempts to quantify the impact of the research published by a given institution.

NOTE: This measure does not take into account the amount of research produced by an institution; thus, two universities may have similar scores on Avg. Cite, but vastly different levels of productivity (e.g. one produced only 5 articles and another produced 100). The Cite Adj. Pubs measure attempts to incorporate both the number of articles produced and the impact of the articles.

Pubs (Number of Publications): The total number of publications in the journals belonging to the category (e.g. Economics) during the period 2000 to 2010 authored or co-authored by someone affiliated with the institution.  For instance, scholars from the University of Hyderabad published forty-nine articles in the journals indexed by ISI’s Social Science Index in the Sociology, Demography and Family Studies categories between 2000 and 2010.

Cite Adj. Pubs (Citation Adjusted Publications): This measure is a relatively straightforward combination of the Avg. Cite and Pubs measures.  Every article i is given a score which is equal to a(i) = 1 + ln(1+citations(i)). I then add up all the article scores a(i) for each institution, resulting in a institution specific Citation Adj. Publication score. If none of the articles published by a university has received a citation, the Cite Adj. Pubs score is equal to the number of publications. As the number of citations increase, this score increases at a decreasing rate.