Research Output of Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs): A Scientometric Study

The article attempts to evaluate the trend of research output of five top ranked Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) on the basis of research papers/articles indexed in Web of Science online database for the 5 years’ period of 2009–2013. A total of 215,019 records were retrieved for India which are 2.72% of the global records for the period 2009–13. The records of articles from top five IITs were scanned which accounted to 9.32% of total records of India. A maximum of 22.27% articles have been indexed in 2013 against 18.41% in 2009. A scientometric assessment of the trend of research papers has been presented in the study by way of analysing; year-wise distribution of publications among IITs versus total Indian research output, institutional distribution, degree of collaborations with other countries and with the institutions from India, etc. The results of the study would be useful to subject specialists, analysts, researchers, students and policy-makers to look into the trends and to make effective policies on the basis of inferences drawn.