The School of Life Sciences, University of Hyderabad emerged as the number one public biotech school in India in 2007 followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology (RGCB), Thiruvananthapuram, according to an industry survey carried out CyberMedia.

The two most important parameters to rank the schools were faculty and infrastructure with nearly two third weightage in the overall ranking while industry interface and placement had a weightage of 16 percent each.

Institute of Chemical Technology, Mumbai held the fourth position and University School of Biotechnology, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University ranked fifth, revealed the fourth annual survey of 200 public and private institutes conducted by BioSpectrum magazine, an offering of the Cybermedia group of publications.

In the last year's survey RGCB, Thiruvananthapuram ranked first while School of Life Sciences, Hyderabad was at second position. National Dairy Research Institute, Karnal, fell to the sixth place this year from number three last year while Department of Biochemical Engineering and Biotechnology, IIT, Delhi which was at number five last year failed to make it to the top 10 list this year.

The fourth CyberMedia study includes ranking of schools offering B.Tech, Masters and Ph.D programmes but not B.Sc programs for the academic year 2006-07. The survey stated that the need for trained manpower in the biotech space has increased as the industry has grown 35 percent year on year for the last four years.

The study was conducted between November and December 2007. To maintain objectivity, the survey based its methodology on measurable and quantifiable data - faculty, industry interface, infrastructure and placements.

The survey clearly pointed out that the country needed biotech schools with state-of-the art facilities to produce biotech students for the industry. Promising job opportunities prevailed in specialised areas like clinical research, manufacturing, field testing of GM crops, regulatory affairs, IPR, biosafety, consultancy for business planning and global collaborations.

RCGB, Thiruvananthapuram had the best infrastructure among the public biotech schools followed by JNU, Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University and Animal Biotechnology Centre, National Dairy Research Institute. Infrastructure of schools, with 34 per cent weightage in the overall ranking, included expenditure on library and lab equipment and no of personal computers per biotech student.

The teaching staff was graded on the basis of faculty per student, qualifications, experience, number of publications in national and international journals and patents filed or granted. University of Hyderabad, Institute of Chemical Technology and RGCB were the top three in this category.

The Department of Microbiology and Biotechnology, MS University of Baroda had the highest placement score though it ranked tenth overall. University of Hyderabad ranked fifth in this parameter lower than University School of Biotechnology at Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University at number two and JNU at number three.

Industry interaction was measured on the basis of products developed by the institute which were in production, number of projects sponsored by industry and government and royalty inflow. The top three institutes in this category were University of Hyderabad, Institute of Chemical Technology and JNU.

RCGB, Thiruvananthapuram and GB Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar's Molecular Biology and Genetic Engineering department were at number four and five respectively.