The O.P. Jindal Global University (JGU), which was among the several private institutions recommended by the University Grants Commission for the "Institution of Eminence" status, thus giving them full autonomy, on Thursday welcomed the "historic recognition".

The Haryana-based varsity, which has eight inter-disciplinary Schools, had submitted, as part of its application, a detailed 15-year ambitious vision plan, spanning academic matters, faculty recruitment, admissions, research, and collaborations, along with detailed implementation plans.

Welcoming the milestone, JGU's Founding Chancellor and benefactor, Naveen Jindal said that the varsity, set up in memory of his father O.P. Jindal who believed in education, entrepreneurship, philanthropy and nation-building, had a vision "to produce outstanding leaders who will make a true difference to the communities in which they live".

He congratulated all the varsity family for the recognition in less than ten years since its inception, and assured all efforts to provide the institution with resources, academic freedom and autonomy and "an enabling environment for it to flourish further".

Founding Vice Chancellor, Professor C. Raj Kumar, termed the development "an incredibly historic recognition" for the institution.

"I hope the IOE and far-reaching policy reforms in higher education will permeate the actions of all regulatory agencies and will ease the environment for higher educational institutions to enable them to focus on their core tasks," he said.

JGU Registrar, Prof. Y.S.R. Murthy said that their quest for eminence began since its inception in 2009, and they had been maintaining an excellent faculty-student ratio, strong commitment to research, internationalization, global collaborations and inter-disciplinarity".

"These recent recognitions will spur us to work harder and aim higher," he added.

In July, JGU was ranked by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) in the global top 150 among all universities under 50 years of age, becoming one of the three Indian institutions in the list along with the Indian Institute of Technology, Guwahati and Anna University. However, it was the only private university from India and the only one with a focus entirely on social sciences, arts and humanities to figure.

In June 2019, JGU became the youngest and the only new Indian university to break into top 1000 in the prestigious QS World University Rankings 2020.