Comparing Research Performance of Private Universities in India with IITs, Central Universities and NITs

During the last two decades the number of private universities in India has increased significantly. According to AISHE report of 2016, out of 799 universities in India, 277 are private universities, i.e. one out of every three universities in India is a private university. A significant proportion of colleges (about 78%) are also privately managed, as they do not contribute much to research activities and hence are not included in this analysis. Private universities are now becoming a major component of the Indian higher education system. Some of the private universities are exclusively positioning and projecting themselves as universities for high quality research and innovation. A few of them are now well placed in the national-level NIRF ranking framework. It is in this context that this paper presents a comparative account of research performance of the 25 most productive private universities with the set of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Central Universities (CUs) and National Institutes of Technology (NITs), all of which have a well-established environment and culture of research. A set-based comparison methodology is followed. The results show good performance of private universities in research, especially in terms of output and rate of growth of output. However, on quality and productivity per capita and per rupee spent, they have a long way to go to match the performance levels of well-established centrally funded higher education institutions of India. This study presents detailed scientometric assessment of some most productive private universities in India.