By Our Correspondent
BHUBANESWAR: Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan Deemed to be University here jumped four spots to be ranked among the top 20 universities in the country as the rankings in the different categories by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) for 2020 were announced by the Union minister for Human Resource Development Dr. Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’ on Thursday.
SOA, as the Deemed to be University is known, has been placed 20th in this year’s ranking in the university category and 38th among overall institutions in the country as per the list released by Dr. Pokhriyal in a video conference.
With this, SOA, which was conferred with the status of a Deemed to be University by the University Grants Commission (UGC) in 2017, remained the top institution in the university category in Odisha for the fifth consecutive year obtaining a score of 53.10 this year.After the NIRF rankings were introduced in 2016, SOA has finished among the top 20 universities in the country for the third time.
In the Engineering category, SOA was ranked 34th while in the category for Medical Colleges it was placed 23rd in the country this year. SOA’s faculty of dental sciences, which entered the ranking process for the first time this year, has been nationally ranked 12th. As per the new ranking for 2020, the faculties of the university’s medical sciences and dental sciences are the top ranked such institutions in Odisha.
Institute of Technical Education and Research (ITER) is SOA’s faculty of engineering and technology while Institute of Medical Sciences (IMS) and SUM Hospital and Institute of Dental Sciences (IDS) are the Deemed to be University’s faculty of medical and dental sciences respectively.
Expressing his happiness over the progress made by the university, SOA Vice-Chancellor Prof. Ashok Kumar Mohapatra said the success was the result of the hard work put in by the faculties, researchers and other stakeholders. “I hope all concerned will strive even harder to help SOA rise in the ranking ladder next year,” he said adding the university has come to be known as one of the finest in the country today.
“The improvement in ranking will certainly motivate all staff members of SOA to achieve greater things in future. I congratulate each of them for this success,” Prof. Manojranjan Nayak, founder President of SOA, said.
Nine different institutions function under the SOA umbrella offering 95 academic programmes in engineering and technology, medical sciences, dental sciences, management sciences, hospital administration, pharmaceutical sciences, biotechnology, nursing, hospitality and tourism management, legal studies and agricultural sciences. Around 12,000 students including from six different countries study in the university.
