Why Are B-Schools Like IIMs, NITIE, XLRI, Missing From Overall NIRF India Rankings 2022?

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University rankings are important for multiple reasons. For students, it helps them decide which university and/ or programs are right for them. For institutions/ universities, they serve as an opportunity to create a brand, which further influences partnership and collaboration opportunities. The MoE recently released the NIRF 2022 rankings, where most B-Schools performed poorly on the overall ranking list. Interestingly, two primarily engineering institutions snatched a spot amongst the IIMs on the list of Top 10 Management Institutes in the nation.

This makes one wonder- why are MBA institutes missing from the overall top university rankings? Where are they going wrong? Or shall we say, what are institutions like IIT D or IIT M doing right? In this article, we’ll look at the reason why B-Schools are missing out on ranking points, as is evident by NIRF 2022 rankings. Before that let’s start from the beginning. 

What Are The Rankings Made Of?

All university rankings are based on a set of parameters that the issuing authority finds of relevance. And even though these parameters vary for different lists, there are some key areas that play a major role in ranking calculations. For example, teaching/ management, diversity, finance/infrastructure, and research.

As for NIRF 2022, the main parameters are:

• Teaching learning & resources
• Graduation outcome
• Research and professional practice
• Outreach & inclusivity 
• Perception 

Within these parameters lies the reason why MBA schools are lagging behind other universities, on the top university rankings. Wonder what it is?

Most B-Schools Have Zero Research Output

Most management institutions in the country have a non-existent or extremely poor research culture. While B-Schools base most of their learning experience on case studies and hands-on learning, they are missing an important point. More than half of the MBA institutions that took part in NIRF 2022 haven’t contributed a single research paper in the education sector. This leads to poor research credit scores and subsequently, low rankings. 

About 670 institutions (management category) participated in NIRF 2022. Of these 383 institutions (57.16%) do not have a single research publication to their credit. Additionally, out of a total of 4405 research papers in the management discipline, 85% have been published by the top 100 institutes. This boils down to 6.5 publications (in management discipline) per institute in the past 3 years or only two papers per year on average.

In contrast, in the engineering discipline, the average number of research papers per institute is 168. Also, only 6% of the participating engineering colleges had zero research papers to credit. Have a look at the table below to get a clear picture of the contrasting situation:

This shows the low concentration of research papers in the management discipline in general as against other disciplines. And also the low production of research papers by most MBA institutes in the country. Is this the reason why most Indian universities are lagging behind in international rankings? 

Either way, it is time B-Schools put their researcher hats on if they want to climb the NIRF ladder next year.

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