It Is Lonely At The Top

Prof. Bhaskar Ramamurthi, Director of IIT Madras, which occupies Rank No.1 in NIRF for four years in a row, speaks to Rajaram Sukumar on what makes the institute stand out…

Q. Congratulations to IIT Madras for getting top honours in NIRF 2019 and maiden ARIIA. The fact that IITM has occupied Rank No.1 among engineering institutions for four consecutive years shows there’s no letup in your efforts to be better than the best. What keeps you so motivated?

A. We have made for ourselves a Strategic Plan for this decade, and I am constantly at work to meet or exceed the objectives of this plan.

Q. What all improvements did you make in the last academic year for parameters used in the NIRF like student-faculty ratio, faculty quality etc.?

A. As per our Strategic Plan, we have to add about 30 new faculty members each year, and we have a rigorous process for faculty selection in order to ensure quality. We have also exceeded our target for visiting foreign faculty. Similarly, we have a target of increasing our research funding each year by 10-15%. We exceeded this target last year. We are constantly monitoring the quantity and quality of our research publications and patents to ensure improvement.

We have improved our placement record to a really great extent and increased the fraction of women students. All of these have been done as per the Strategic Plan objectives, and incidentally, they also help in maintaining our rankings.

Q. IITM is also the No.1 institution in the maiden Atal Ranking of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) ranking. What were the parameters used to gauge institutions? What made IITM stand out?