Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate

public In public relations and communication science, publics are groups of individual people, and the public (a.k.a. the general public) is the totality of such groupings. This is a different concept to the sociology, sociological concept of the ''Öf ...

state university A state university system in the United States is a group of public universities supported by an individual state, territory or federal district. These systems constitute the majority of public-funded universities in the country. State univer ...

located in the city of

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganeshkhind. The university houses 46 academic departments. It has about 307 recognized research institutes and 612 affiliated colleges offering graduate and under-graduate courses. Savitribai Phule Pune University Ranked 12th

NIRF The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, to rank institutions of higher education in India. The Framework was approved by the MHRD and launched by Minister ...

Ranking in 2022

History

The University of Pune was established on 10 February 1949 under the Pune University Act passed by the

Bombay Mumbai (, ; also known as Bombay — List of renamed Indian cities and states#Maharashtra, the official name until 1995) is the capital city of the Indian States and union territories of India, state of Maharashtra and the ''de facto'' fin ...

legislature in 1948. M. R. Jayakar became its first

vice-chancellor A chancellor is a leader of a college or university, usually either the executive or ceremonial head of the university or of a university campus within a university system. In most Commonwealth and former Commonwealth nations, the chancellor ...

. Its first office was started from the Nizam Guest House, which is part of

Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute The Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute (BORI) is located in Pune, Maharashtra, India. It was founded on 6 July 1917 and named after Ramakrishna Gopal Bhandarkar (1837–1925), long regarded as the founder of Indology (Orientalism) in Ind ...

on Law College Road. The university was operated at

Nizam Guest House The Nizams were the rulers of Hyderabad from the 18th through the 20th century. Nizam of Hyderabad (Niẓām ul-Mulk, also known as Asaf Jah) was the title of the monarch of the Hyderabad State ( divided between the state of Telangana, Mar ...

until 1 June 1949. Its current building was originally called the Governor House. As its name suggests, it was the seasonal retreat of the governor of Bombay. B. G. Kher, Chief Minister and Education Minister of the government of Bombay, helped ensure the university received a large allocation of land for their campus. The university was allocated over 411 acres (1.66 km²). The institution's name was changed from the University of Pune to Savitribai Phule Pune University on 9 August 2014 in honor of

Savitribai Phule Savitribai Phule was an Indian social reformer, educationalist, and poet from Maharashtra. Along with her husband, in Maharashtra, she played an important and vital role in improving women's rights in India. She is considered to be the pioneer ...

, the 19th century Indian social reformer who played an important role in improving the lives of women and the

Dalit Dalit (from sa, दलित, dalita meaning "broken/scattered"), also previously known as untouchable, is the lowest stratum of the castes in India. Dalits were excluded from the four-fold varna system of Hinduism and were seen as forming ...

communities in Maharashtra during British colonial rule. She and her husband

Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jyotirao Govindrao Phule, also known as Mahatma Jyotiba Phule (11 April 1827 – 28 November 1890) was an Indian social activist, thinker, anti-caste social reformer and writer from Maharashtra. His work extended to many fields, including erad ...

founded India's first native-run school for girls in 1848.

Organisation and administration

Governance

Jurisdiction

Initially the university had a jurisdiction extending over 12 districts of western

Maharashtra Maharashtra (; , abbr. MH or Maha) is a state in the western peninsular region of India occupying a substantial portion of the Deccan Plateau. Maharashtra is the second-most populous state in India and the second-most populous country subdi ...

. With the establishment of

Shivaji University Shivaji University, established in 1962, is a state university located at Kolhapur, Maharashtra, India. The university, with a campus spread over , is named after Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, founder of the Maratha Empire. It was inaugurated ...

Kolhapur Kolhapur () is a city on the banks of the Panchganga River in the southern part of the Indian state of Maharashtra. It is the administrative headquarter of the Kolhapur district. In, around 2 C.E. Kolapur's name was 'Kuntal'. Kolhapur is ...

in 1962, the jurisdiction was restricted to five districts:

Ahmednagar Ahmednagar (), is a city located in the Ahmednagar district in the state of Maharashtra, India, about 120 km northeast of Pune and 114 km from Aurangabad. Ahmednagar takes its name from Ahmad Nizam Shah I, who founded the town in 1494 ...

Nashik Nashik (, Marathi: aːʃik, also called as Nasik ) is a city in the northern region of the Indian state of Maharashtra. Situated on the banks of river Godavari, Nashik is the third largest city in Maharashtra, after Mumbai and Pune. Nash ...

Dhule Dhule is a city located in the Dhule District in the northwestern part of Maharashtra state, India known as West Khandesh. Situated on the banks of Panzara River, Dhule is the regional headquarters of MIDC, RTO, and MTDC. The city is mainly kn ...

, and

Jalgaon Jalgaon () is a city in Maharashtra, India. The city is located in North Maharashtra, and serves as the administrative headquarters of its namesake district, the Jalgaon district. Jalgaon is colloquially known as the “''Banana City of Ind ...

. Out of these, two districts—Dhule and Jalgaon—are attached to the

North Maharashtra University Kavayitri Bahinabai Chaudhari North Maharashtra University is a university situated in Jalgaon, Maharashtra. Formerly North Maharashtra University was established on 15 August 1990 after separating it from the parent University of Pune. In 200 ...

established in August 1990.

Vice-Chancellors

Past and present vice-chancellors of the university are:

Departments

The university has various departments and centres, offering courses in science, social science, management, law, etc. * Unipune introduces a bachelor's degree course in Environment Science. The course started from the academic year of 2018–2019. * The Department of Foreign Languages was started in Ranade institute building in 1949. It offers courses for German, French, Russian, Japanese and Spanish languages from elementary level to post graduation courses. Batches are conducted in morning as well as in evening. Over 1500 students are enrolled every year. * Competition Exam Center (CEC): is for coaching programs for various government competition exams. * Krantijyoti Savitribai Phule Women's Studies Centre. SAVITRIBAI PHULE PUNE UNIVERSITY

Rankings

In 2018, the University of Pune was ranked 7th among universities in India by the

Times Higher Education ''Times Higher Education'' (''THE''), formerly ''The Times Higher Education Supplement'' (''The Thes''), is a British magazine reporting specifically on news and issues related to higher education. Ownership TPG Capital acquired TSL Education ...

. In 2022, the University of Pune ranked between 591 and 600 in the

QS World University Ranking ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for th ...

. Savitribai Phule Pune University was ranked 601–800 in the world by the ''

Times Higher Education World University Rankings The ''Times Higher Education World University Rankings'' (often referred to as the THE Rankings) is an annual publication of university rankings by the ''Times Higher Education'' (THE) magazine. The publisher had collaborated with Quacquarel ...

'' of 2020, as well as 135 in Asia and 128 among Emerging Economies University Rankings in 2020. The

QS World University Rankings ''QS World University Rankings'' is an annual publication of university rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS). The QS system comprises three parts: the global overall ranking, the subject rankings (which name the world's top universities for th ...

of 2020 ranked it 191 in Asia in 2020 and 100 among universities in

BRICS BRICS is an acronym for five leading emerging economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. The first four were initially grouped as "BRIC" (or "the BRICs") in 2001 by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill, who coined the te ...

nations in 2019. It was ranked 19 in India overall by the ''

National Institutional Ranking Framework The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is a methodology adopted by the Ministry of Education, Government of India, to rank institutions of higher education in India. The Framework was approved by the MHRD and launched by Minister ...

'' in 2020 and 9th among universities.

Management Council

The Management Council is the principal executive authority of the university and is chaired by the vice-chancellor. It typically consists of around 20 member, of which, three are elected by the Academic Council and nine are elected or nominated by the senate. The Management Council formulates statutes, makes ordinances to be approved by the Senate, and administers the affairs of the university. Over 1,800 Indian students were granted admission in various professional courses from 2002 to 2007 for the seats reserved for Persons of Indian Origin (PIO) by then director of International Students Centre (ISC) of University of Pune. This was revealed by Sunanda Pawar enquiry committee formed by the then UoP vice chancellor Narendra Jadhav. Pawar was a member of the management council of UoP.

Achievements

In the Khelo India University Games in Odisha, Savitribai Phule Pune University was on top with 29 medals including fifteen gold, eight silver, and six bronze medals on the fifth day on 26 February 2020. Savitribai Phule Pune University's Joyita Sarkar was one of the 21 people and the only one from an educational institute in the state to be awarded by President

Ramnath Kovind Ram Nath Kovind (; born 1 October 1945) is an Indian politician who served as the 14th President of India from 2017 to 2022. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party. He is the second person after K. R. Narayanan, from the Dalit community ...

for her role in science communication and popularisation on the

National Science Day National Science Day is celebrated in India on February 28 each year to mark the discovery of the Raman effect by Indian physicist Sir C. V. Raman on 28 February 1928. For his discovery, Sir C.V. Raman was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics i ...

in New Delhi. Four students from the Savitribai Phule Pune University's (SPPU) competitive exam centres have stood first in the state in their respective categories for

Maharashtra Public Service Commission The Maharashtra Public Service Commission (MPSC) is a body created by the Constitution of India under article 315 to select Group 'A' and Group 'B' civil servants for the Indian state of Maharashtra according to the merits of the applicants a ...

(MPSC) civil services exams for sales tax inspector.

Student life

The colleges of the university provide residences for students. The International Centre provides residences for international students, including visiting students.

Alumni and faculty

Alumni of Savitribai Phule Pune University include major politicians of India including

Vishwanath Pratap Singh Vishwanath Pratap Singh (25 June 1931 – 27 November 2008), shortened to V. P. Singh, was an Indian politician who was the 7th Prime Minister of India from 1989 to 1990 and the 41st Raja Bahadur of Manda. He is India's only prime minister t ...

, 7th

Prime Minister of India The prime minister of India (IAST: ) is the head of government of the Republic of India. Executive authority is vested in the prime minister and their chosen Council of Ministers, despite the president of India being the nominal head of the ...

;

Pratibha Patil Prathibha DeviSingh Patil (born 19 December 1934) is an Indian politician and lawyer who served as the 12th president of India spanning from 2007 to 2012. She is the first woman to become the president of India. A member of the Indian National ...

, 12th

President of India The president of India ( IAST: ) is the head of state of the Republic of India. The president is the nominal head of the executive, the first citizen of the country, as well as the commander-in-chief of the Indian Armed Forces. Droupadi Murm ...

;

Vilasrao Deshmukh Vilasrao Dagadojirao Deshmukh (26 May 1945 – 14 August 2012) was an Indian politician who served as the 14th Chief Minister of Maharashtra, first term from 18 October 1999 to 16 January 2003 and second term, from 1 November 2004 to 5 D ...

, 17th and 19th Chief Minister of Maharashtra; and

Sharad Pawar Sharad Govindrao Pawar (Marathi pronunciation: �əɾəd̪ pəʋaːɾ born 12 December 1940) is an Indian politician. He has served as the Chief Minister of Maharashtra on four occasions. He has held the posts of Minister of Defence and Mini ...

, former Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

P. V. Narasimha Rao Pamulaparthi Venkata Narasimha Rao (28 June 1921 – 23 December 2004) was an Indian lawyer, statesman and politician who served as the 9th prime minister of India from 1991 to 1996. He is known for introducing various liberal reforms to Indi ...

, 9th Prime Minister of India, graduated from

Fergusson College Fergusson College is an autonomous public-private college offering various courses in the streams of arts and science in the city of Pune, India. It was founded in 1885 by the Deccan Education Society. Professor Vaman Shivram Apte was its fir ...

, when the college was under the

University of Pune Savitribai Phule Pune University (SPPU), formerly the University of Poona, is a collegiate public state university located in the city of Pune, India. It was established in 1949, and is spread over a campus in the neighbourhood of Ganes ...

Khaled Bahah Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah ( ar, خالد محفوظ بحاح) (born 1 January 1965) is a Yemeni politician and diplomat who served as Prime Minister of Yemen between 2014 and 2016, as well as Vice President of Yemen from 2015 until he was fired on Ap ...

, 2nd Vice President of Yemen and Prime Minister of Yemen, received his

BCom A Bachelor of Commerce (abbreviated BComm or BCom; also, ''baccalaureates commercii'') is an undergraduate degree in business, usually awarded in Canada, Australia, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Ireland, New Zealand, Ghana, South Africa ...

and MCom from the university. In science and engineering, notable alumni of the university include

Padmanabhan Balaram Padmanabhan Balaram is an Indian biochemist and a former director of the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, India. He is a recipient of the third highest Indian civilian honour of Padma Bhushan (2014) as well as the TWAS Prize (1994). H ...

, chemist and director of the Indian Institute of Science; Kantilal Mardia, statistician and

Guy Medal The Guy Medals are awarded by the Royal Statistical Society in three categories; Gold, Silver and Bronze. The Silver and Bronze medals are awarded annually. The Gold Medal was awarded every three years between 1987 and 2011, but is awarded biennia ...

lists; Thomas Kailath, electrical engineer and recipient of the 2014 National Medal of Science; Vistasp Karbhari, civil engineer and the eighth president of the

University of Texas at Arlington The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA or UT Arlington) is a public research university in Arlington, Texas. The university was founded in 1895 and was in the Texas A&M University System for several decades until joining the University of ...

; Suhas Patankar, professor at the

University of Minnesota The University of Minnesota, formally the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, (UMN Twin Cities, the U of M, or Minnesota) is a public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States. ...

, and pioneer in the field of

computational fluid dynamics Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical analysis and data structures to analyze and solve problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate ...

(CFD) and finite volume method; C. Kumar N. Patel, inventor of the

carbon dioxide laser The carbon-dioxide laser (CO2 laser) was one of the earliest gas lasers to be developed. It was invented by Kumar Patel of Bell Labs in 1964 and is still one of the most useful types of laser. Carbon-dioxide lasers are the highest-power contin ...

, recipient of the 1996 National Medal of Science and vice-Chancellor for Research at the

University of California, Los Angeles The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the Californ ...

; and

Vinod Scaria Dr. Vinod Scaria Royal Society of Biology, FRSB, Royal Society for Public Health, FRSPH (born 9 March 1981) is an Indian biologist, medical researcher pioneering in Precision Medicine and Clinical Genomics in India. He is best known for sequenci ...

bioinformatician Bioinformatics () is an interdisciplinary field that develops methods and software tools for understanding biological data, in particular when the data sets are large and complex. As an interdisciplinary field of science, bioinformatics combine ...

, who is known for sequencing the first Indian

genome In the fields of molecular biology and genetics, a genome is all the genetic information of an organism. It consists of nucleotide sequences of DNA (or RNA in RNA viruses). The nuclear genome includes protein-coding genes and non-coding ...

V. S. Huzurbazar Vasant Shankar Huzurbazar (15 September 1919 – 15 November 1991) was an Indian statistician from Kolhapur. Huzurbazar was the founder head of the department of statistics, University of Pune from 1953 to 1976. From 1979 to 1991, he served as ...

served as the first head of the statistics department. S.N. Sadasivan who was Civil Services trainer, Author and historian.

Madhav Gadgil Madhav Dhananjaya Gadgil (born 24 May 1942) is an Indian ecologist, academic, writer, columnist and the founder of the ''Centre for Ecological Sciences'', a research forum under the aegis of the Indian Institute of Science. He is a former memb ...

, an ecologist and Sulochana Gadgil, meteorologist. Politician includes

Agatha Sangma Agatha Kongkal Sangma (born 24 July 1980) is an Indian politician serving as a Member of Parliament, Lok Sabha representing the Tura constituency of Meghalaya. At the age of 29, she is the youngest member of parliament ever in India to be appo ...

K. T. Rama Rao Kalvakuntla Taraka Rama Rao (born 24 July 1976), popularly known by his initials KTR, is an Indian politician serving as the Minister for Municipal Administration & Urban Development, Industries & Commerce, and Information Technology of Tela ...

Prakash Javadekar Prakash Keshav Javadekar (born 30 January 1951) is an Indian politician. He is a member of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and served as the Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change from 30 May 2019 till 7 July 2021. Javadekar was ...

, and

Nabeel Rajab Nabeel Ahmed Abdulrasool Rajab ( ar, نبيل أحمد عبدالرسول رجب, born on 1 September 1964) is a Bahraini human rights activist and opposition leader. He is a member of the Advisory Committee of Human Rights Watch's Middle East ...

. Academician

Jyoti Gogte Dr. Jyoti Jayant Gogte (born Jyoti Devali-Rao, on 26 May 1956) is an Indian entrepreneur and academician, most notable for authoring ''Startup & New Venture Management'' (2014), a reference textbook on entrepreneurship. Biography Early lif ...

, graduated her BCom, MCom, and Ph.D. from the university, and was a Ph.D. guide for the university from 2006 to 2013. Art collector and historian Dinkar G. Kelkar graduated his

D. Litt. Doctor of Letters (D.Litt., Litt.D., Latin: ' or ') is a terminal degree in the humanities that, depending on the country, is a higher doctorate after the Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree or equivalent to a higher doctorate, such as the Doctor ...

degree from the university in 1978.

References

External links

*
Pune university Information Center
{{DEFAULTSORT:University Of Pune Universities in Maharashtra Educational institutions established in 1949 1949 establishments in India Tourist attractions in Pune district