Making Scientometric Sense out of NIRF Scores

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2016 rankings have released a wealth of bibliometric data that is otherwise difficult to collect. We have closely examined the top 20 engineering institutions in engineering from the NIRF list from the point of view of research excellence alone, as is done in most international university ranking exercises. Unlike the NIRF score, which is one single number, we now decompose performance into a size-dependent exergy term and a size-independent productivity term. The IITs at Bombay and Kharagpur stand out in terms of research excellence. Another insight is the excellent promise shown by the new IITs at Ropar-Rupnagar and Indore.