Vision and Culture Change are Key to the NEP 2020
Delivering the ambitions of the NEP is primarily about vision and culture change both at sectoral and institutional level.
The NEP 2020 recognises at its core that India’s universities will need to change in order to deliver, but there is less agreement about what needs to be done to create a cohort of world-leading institutions here. One option to inform this debate is to compare institutions against their global peers.
With 2022/23 outcomes now released for three major university rankings, Times Higher Education, QS and Shanghai, despite some progress, yet again Indian Institutions are poorly represented in the group of top global universities. The top 100 institutions in each global ranking are dominated by the USA, China, Germany and the United Kingdom, four of the world’s largest economies. India currently has the world’s 6th largest economy and in a few years will have the largest population. Why are no India institutions in the top 100 ranking and what needs to be done to transform India’s HE and research sectors?
The value and relevance of the main systems of global rankings for higher education and research tend to split communities and are almost equally welcomed and criticised. One way to improve the value of the results is to compare the component data used to rank institutions between countries and to combine this with selected national-level datasets on science, economy and society that are collated by the United Nations.
A comparison of the performance of India with, for example, the UK, provides a useful contrast. In 2021, the size of both economies was virtually identical, but the performance of HE institutions in the rankings are currently very much better in the UK than in India. Using the component data from the most recent Times Higher Education rankings reported in October, it becomes very clear that the differences between the two countries are linked to measures of research quality and reputation and the international profile and activities of institutions.
Data collated by the UN also offer interesting insights. The total size of the research and development workforce are similar in both countries, around 550,000 in India and nearly 700,000 in the UK, but the level of expenditure on research and development as a proportion of the national economy in 2018 was over two times higher in the UK (1.7 % of GDP compared with 0.7 % in India). India’s NEP aims to increase this through a combination of government and private sector investment, but this may be a large ask considering that there has been a steady decline in this indicator over the last ten years in India.
The need for increased investment in the HE and research sectors for supporting staff, students and their academic activities cannot be ignored if the NEP is to be successful. The investment will not be worthwhile unless it is accompanied by cultural change, however. This is where comparison of the underlying data used in global rankings becomes especially useful in highlighting the changes most likely to generate results.
The recent Times Higher Education rankings use data derived from the Elsevier Scopus and Scival systems. These show that academic output of the UK and India over the last three years (2019-2021) are very similar, at just under 700,000 publications. That is where the similarity ends, with publications from UK institutions being cited just under 10 times compared to 5 times for Indian publications. When these data are adjusted for academic areas, Indian publications have slightly lower academic impact than the global average, whilst publications from the UK have over 50% higher academic impact. The differences are reinforced with similar results in relation to the proportion of papers which involved collaboration with industry or international partners and those published in the top 10% of academic journals.
The message on research is clear. Universities in India would greatly benefit from focusing our research efforts on producing high quality research and publications, not just quantity, and seeking to enhance partnerships both globally and with industry. The government also quite rightly wishes to see that the growth of research is linked to driving innovation that addresses themes of national and global importance.
The global comparison on educational activities produces results that are more diverse. Indeed, in a country such as the United Kingdom, it has been argued that some of the most successful research-intensive institutions build that success by focussing less on the quality of their educational offer and support for students. Indeed, several Indian institutions rank very well in terms of their overall global reputation for education. The problem for Indian institutions highlighted by all three of the global rankings is related to the international profile of Indian institutions. Almost uniformly, Indian HEIs have very low numbers of international students and staff. Experience from other countries suggest that this in has impact on the quality of both education and research.
How can Indian institutions become more international in their focus and activities and enhance their international reputation? The NEP suggests driving growth through promoting India as a destination for global students and the benefits of increased transnational education. It also plans to attract a number of global top 100 HEIs to set up branch campuses in India. Whilst these actions will undoubtedly have benefits, they will not be enough to deliver the change that the economy and society needs.
Three specific actions could be considered that could have the potential to transform the global excellence of higher education and research:
1. Focus on delivering enhanced quality, relevance and impact through world-class education research and innovation. This focus must respond to the needs of the national and the local communities and businesses for each institution. Each institution should drive this process through improvements in their academic governance, systems and processes and supported by strategic staff appointments and investments. They should develop a clear strategy and vision that sets out their goals for growth and impact. This needs to be a response that is right for India, even if all institutions take the opportunity to learn from and adapt examples of global best practice.
2. Build strategic partnerships that will deliver significant value for each institution, its staff and students, local communities and the economy. Once again, Indian institutions should grasp the opportunity and set the agenda by defining the types of partnerships that they need. Institutions could build a portfolio of partnerships that include other HEIs in India, business and government and with international HEIs and businesses. They should aim to learn from examples of global best practice that increasingly looks to integrative partnerships linking education, research and community engagement.
3. Create the enablers of future success that can drive change at the scale and speed required to deliver against both the needs of Indian society and the aspirations of the Indian Government. Once each institution has set out its vision for the future, it will need to define how that vision can be delivered.