Govt to rank higher educational institutions on Innovation Achievements

Ministry of Education will announce the ranking of educational institutions on December 29. Dr Subhas Sarkar, Minister of State for Education, will virtually make this announcement for Atal Rankings of Institutions on Innovation Achievements (ARIIA) 2021.

Ministry of Education and the All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have jointly launched this initiative for the systematic ranking of higher educational institutions in India. The indicators for this ranking are related to Innovation, Startup and Entrepreneurship Development amongst students and faculty.

“ARIIA critically evaluates institutions on parameters like patent filing and granted, number of registered students and faculty startups, fund generation by incubated startups, specialised infrastructure created by institutions to promote innovation and entrepreneurship, etc,” a press release issued by the Ministry of Education said.

Prof Anil Sahasrabudhe, Chairman, AICTE, praised the significant improvement in the standard of educational institutions and said that India is constantly improving on Global Innovation Index (GII) ranking and has now moved upward to 46th position in 2021 from 81st in 2015.

“We have also emerged as world’s third largest startup hub but still we have huge scope for improvement, he added. AICTE firmly believes that in coming years, our technical institutes will become fountainhead of next generation technology driven start-ups if we can create a vibrant Innovation and entrepreneurial ecosystem. ARIIA ranking is a major attempt in that direction,” Prof Sahasrabudhe said.

“ARIIA-2021 ranks will be announced in 9 separate categories which includes Centrally funded technical institutions (eg IITs, NITs, etc), State Universities, State standalone Technical colleges, Private universities, Private standalone technical colleges, non-technical government and private universities and institutions,” the release said.