Nauni varsity ranked 12 in Agri universities ranking; jump of 26 positions

For the past three years, UHF has been the highest-ranked university in Himachal Pradesh Making a significant improvement, the Dr YS Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry (UHF), Nauni has been ranked at 12th position in the ranking of agricultural universities and research institutes conducted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR). The rankings were released earlier this week at the ICAR Foundation Day held at New Delhi, which was attended by UHF Vice Chancellor Dr Parvinder Kaushal. This year the university has improved 26 places in the list. Now in its third year, the ICAR ranking was initiated in 2016 to improve the standard of higher agricultural education in the country. In all, 60 agricultural universities of India featured in the ranking this year. The universities were judged on parameters like student and faculty profile, publications and citations, research, technologies commercialized etc. In 2016, UHF was placed at 51st position, which it improved to 38 in 2017. This year the university improved 26 places to bag 12th position in this ranking. The university has been continuously ranked among the top universities in the country. For the past three years, UHF has been the highest-ranked university in Himachal Pradesh in the Union Ministry of Human Resource Development’s NIRF rankings. This year, the university had achieved 80th position in the top 100 universities in the country and was the only one from the state to find a place in this list. The University has performed quite well on various parameters including the performance of students in ICAR NET, JRF, SRF and other state and national level competitive examinations. The excellent placement of students in public and private enterprises, quality publications, technology transfer initiatives, implementation of ICAR Deans' committee recommendations, timely release of grants from the state government and internal revenue generation were areas, which helped the university to register this big jump in rankings. The National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Karnal, and the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, have been ranked at first and second places respectively in this rankings. GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar and Haryana Agriculture University, Hisar have bagged the third and fourth positions respectively. Panjab Agriculture University, Ludhiana and Guru Angad Dev Veterinary and Animal Sciences University, Ludhiana are at seventh and eighth positions respectively. Speaking at the occasion, Dr Parvinder Kaushal congratulated the students, faculty and the staff of the university on the achievement and lauded their efforts for the betterment of the university and the agriculture community. Dr Kaushal said that in order to compete with global universities, UHF would strengthen students’ placement and career development, and linkages with world class institutions. He added that the university will continue to strive in the areas of academic, research and extension education and work towards realizing the goal of doubling farmers’ income.