Research pays for Indian universities

Mumbai: Asian universities may rank lower than western ones on many research-linked parameters in global listings but their researchers make more money when adjusting their earnings for a currency’s real purchasing power, also known as purchasing power parity (PPP).
These are the findings of the World Academic Summit Innovation Index, compiled for the first time by Times Higher Education ahead of its inaugural World Academic Summit in Singapore in October.
The results show academics from South Korea to be the most commercially valuable, with companies investing nearly $100,000 each in South Korean scholars to conduct research on their behalf.
Singapore came second, with researchers earning an average $84,500 each. The Netherlands was third ($72,800) and South Africa came fourth ($64,400).
Nine Asian countries feature in the table, with five of their institutions in the top 10—more than any other continent. Taiwan ranks sixth ($53,900), China is seventh ($50,500) and India ranks 10th ($36,900). In contrast, Canada ranks 13th, the US 14th and the UK 26th.
The index first converted all cash values into US dollars, then used PPP to factor in the cost of living in each country featured in the study, adjusting the value per researcher up or down to make it relative to a currency’s purchasing power.
Though India is ranked the fifth most commercially valuable country in Asia, and 10th globally, the three Indian institutions featured in the Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2013 survey—IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Bombay and IIT-Roorkee—are all ranked below 226.
“While many Indian institutions struggle to perform strongly across all of our rankings indicators, which are dominated by research performance indicators, they do have a strong and proven track record of working successfully with industry,” Phil Baty, editor-at-large, Times Higher Education, said in an emailed reply.
“Indeed, this is one of their great strengths...on a more level-playing field (after PPP) with the developed world, India’s IITs (Indian Institutes of Technology) do very well indeed,” Baty said.
“It would seem that in recent years, the world’s increasing enthusiasm for technological advancement and computer science has seen big business shift its attention eastward to Asia,” the report said.
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The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), for instance, collaborated with Samsu