The University Grants Commission (UGC) has recommended declaring University of Hyderabad (UoH) an Institution of Eminence (IoE) at its meeting held in New Delhi on Friday.
The meeting was held to consider the reports of the Empowered Expert Committee (EEC) headed by N. Gopalaswami, appointed by the government to recommend public and private institutions to be considered for IoE status.
The UoH is one among the four institutes that have been recommended for IoE status and the others are IIT-Madras, IIT-Kharagpur, Delhi University (Central university) and BHU Varanasi (Central university).
Jadavpur University in Kolkata and Anna University in Chennai have also been in the list, but the EEC said it needs consultation with the respective State governments prior being considered for the IoE status as the State governments have to bear 50% of the funds extended under IoE status.
The Gopalaswami panel recommended 15 institutes each in public and private sectors. Since the IoE scheme is to be extended to only 10 public and 10 private institutions, the UGC examined the list using transparent and verifiable criteria to identify 10 institutions in each category.
Since the thrust of the scheme is to prepare institutions for global rankings, no institution which has not figured in any of the global or national ranks would be recommended for the IoE status.
Andhra University in Visakhapatnam also found place in the top 15 suggested by the Gopalaswami panel, but it could not make it to the final 10. The other four in this category are Savitribai Phule Pune University, Pune; AMU, Aligarh; Tezpur University and Panjab University, Chandigarh.
Among the private institutes that the UGC recommended to issue Letter of Intent (LoI) include BITS-Pilani, Rajasthan; Manipal Academy of Higher Education; Jio Institute in Maharashtra, which is yet to be established; Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Bengaluru; VIT Vellore, Tami Nadu; Jamia Hamdard, Delhi; Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, Bhubaneswar; O.P. Jindal University, Haryana; Shiv Nadar University, Uttar Pradesh; and Bharti (Satya Bharti Foundation), Delhi.
