CHENNAI: Three courses of IIT Madras- petroleum engineering, electrical engineering, and mechanical engineering-featured among top 100 in the QS World University Rankings (by subject) 2021. These courses ranked 30, 82 and 92 in global rankings respectively.

The petroleum engineering course offered by Anna University also featured in the top 51 to100 bracket while SRM Institute of Science and Technology (SRMIST)'s course featured among in the 101 to 150 bracket. IIT Madras ranked 114 in computer science and information systems while Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) featured in the 351 to 400 rank bracket. The computer science course offered by Anna University and
Amrita Vishwa Vidhyapeetham featured among 551 to 600. Mechanical engineering course offered by VIT and NIT, Trichy featured within top 400 and top 500.

Civil engineering, business and management studies and maths also featured within top 200 at global level this year. IIT Madras got 94th rank at global level in engineering and technology category and third at country level after IITBombay and IITDelhi.
"Most of our engineering subjects are within top150 and we have earlier also had several subjects in top 100. Petroleum engineering is a young programme not offered in many IITs. It has now reached some maturity," said IIT Madras director Bhaskar Ramamurthi. Last year, IIT Madras ranked 88 in engineering and technology category.

Despite several issues in terms of faculty shortage and recent controversies, Anna University got 388th rank globally and 9th at all India level. Among the top eight institutions in the country, seven are IITs apart from Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru.

"Anna University is the only state university which has been ranked very high in petroleum engineering, engineering and technology this year. Despite several constraints including overcrowded laboratories and hostels, we are able to achieve very high ranking. It shows that talent is not only confined to IITs, but also comes from other institutions such as state universities," said M K Surappa, vice-chancellor of Anna University.

Though the university did well in indicators like research output including H-index citations (72.7) and citations per paper (78.1), the scores in other indicators like academic reputation (53.9) and employer reputation have dipped 1 and 4 points respectively.

Professors said the low scores in these two parameters could be because of the recent controversies.The rank has come down by 15 places compared to last year.