BIT-Mesra has decided to focus on tie-ups with American universities, upgrade laboratories and improve R&D facilities to tide over the recent setback in all-India rankings that saw the over 60-year-old engineering university of Jharkhand drop to 31st place from last year's 17.

"Ranking or not, BIT-Mesra has always been a centre of quality education. We don't want to get into how the evaluation was done, as perceptions vary from person to person," registrar A.P. Krishna said about the results of the Union HRD ministry conducted National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF).

This year, BIT-Mesra was ranked 31st, a drastic fall compared to last year's 17 in the engineering category. In pharmacy, BIT-Mesra was no longer among the top 10. It was ranked 12th vis-à-vis last year's 7th.

"Last year, not many had participated (in the ranking exercise). But this time, several institutes took part. This maybe the reason for slipping in the rankings," he said, indicating they were not going to spend too much time on the reasons behind the setback.

Instead, BIT-Mesra would look ahead, Krishna said. The highlight of the year would be enhanced global summer internship opportunities for students. The university, he explained, had been pursuing tie-ups with US universities well before the ranking exercise got underway.

"Recently, vice chancellor M.K. Singh was on a tour of the US. He held meetings with four to five North American universities. Discussions are in the final stages. We will make a formal announcement once deals are signed," he said, adding that if everything fell into place, BIT would be, for the first time, sending students and faculty for summer internships and exchange programmes to foreign shores.

"Tentatively, costs will be shared by participating universities, our alumni network in the US and partly by students and faculty," Krishna said.

Established in 1955, BIT-Mesra boasts a 780-acre campus with centres in Lalpur and Deoghar in Jharkhand, Patna in Bihar, Jaipur in Rajasthan and in a few other places. While its main campus is home to 2,000 students, the overall student strength across all centres is more than 10,000. There are 277 faculty members.

Krishna said BIT's student-faculty ratio was adequate and that they were now focusing on upgrading mentors and laboratories.

"We are mapping best laboratories both within the country and worldwide. We are upgrading labs in line with the best. For example, for mechanical engineering, laboratories of IIT-Madras are said to be the benchmark. Similarly, in civil it's IIT-Roorkee," he said.

This apart, BIT-Mesra was upgrading its research potential through international tie-ups. "The idea is to bag more projects to offer exposure to both faculty and students," Krishna said.

Head of the department of pharmacy B.N. Sinha maintained that in terms of campus infrastructure and other parameters, BIT-Mesra had one of the best facilities in the country. But, he admitted they needed to focus on improving R&D capabilities.

"The pharmacy department is 45 years old. But we have only three to four patents. This needs to be given a major boost. I have worked out a plan for enhancing R&D, building global tie-ups and developing community programmes," he said.