NIRF - Student Projects , Faculty Ph.D Thesis

The Ministry of Education is privileged to present the tenth edition of the India Rankings for the year 2025, meticulously compiled using the parameters established by the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF). This iteration significantly expands upon the foundational work of the preceding nine annual exercises, conducted from 2016 to 2024, through the integration of substantial enhancements, expansions, and refinements.

The scope of the India Rankings 2025 has been broadened to include additional categories and subject domains, underscoring a consistent increase in both the number of participating institutions and those successfully ranked across diverse categories and disciplines. The engagement of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in these rankings has witnessed remarkable growth, escalating from 3,565 in 2016 to an impressive 14,163 in 2025.

Concurrently, the number of categories and subject domains has expanded from four in 2016 to seventeen in 2025, reflecting the evolving landscape of Indian higher education. The established practice of providing a comprehensive "Overall" rank is maintained for the 2025 India Rankings cycle.

The Ministry of Education is delighted to announce the release of India Rankings 2025 signifying a decade of dedicated effort in evaluating and ranking higher education institutions nationwide, a truly significant milestone for our educational landscape. We express our heartfelt gratitude to the Hon'ble Union Minister of Education, Shri th Dharmendra Pradhan, for sparing his precious time and graciously releasing the India Rankings 2025 on 4 September, 2025. Building upon the initial ranking framework, released under the banner “National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)”, on September 29, 2015, the India Rankings have matured into a comprehensive and data-driven evaluation and ranking system.

The tenth edition of India Rankings, ranks institutions of higher education in nine categories, namely, Overall, Universities, Colleges, Research Institutions, Innovation, Open Universities, State Public Universities, Skill Universities and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Concurrently, institutions of higher education are also ranked in eight subject domains, namely Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Law, Medical, Architecture & Planning, Dental, and Agriculture & Allied Sectors. Notably, the introduction of a new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) category this year underscores global priorities and broadens the thematic reach of the ranking framework.

Unlike media-based rankings that often rely on perception or reputation, the India Rankings are grounded in objective, verifiable metrics, utilizing data submitted by institutions and third-party sources such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Derwent Innovation to source data on publications, citations, highly-cited publications, and patents. Over the past decade, the ranking framework has undergone iterative refinements, drawing on stakeholder feedback, benchmarking practices from global ranking systems, and advancements in data analytics. However, fidelity of five generic group of parameters proposed in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) is maintained.

These broad categories of parameters are: i) Teaching, Learning and Resources (TLR); ii) Research and Professional Practice (RP); iii) Graduation Outcome (GO); Outreach and Inclusivity (OI); and v) Perception (PR) Despite periodic adjustments to indicators, metrics, and normalization methods, the fundamental structure of the framework has remained unchanged. As a result, rankings have remained relatively consistent among top-ranked institutions over the years, underscoring consistency of ranking methodology, coherence and interdependency of parameters deployed to measure of performance of institutions of higher education.

The India Rankings 2025 builds on the strong foundation of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), unveiled in 2015. This year's rankings continue to consolidate, improve, and expand with integration of valuable insights from years of experience, stakeholder's feedback, and global best practices in the ranking system. This rigorous process has successfully identified and implemented effective benchmarks to assess the performance of Indian academic institutions. The practice of pre-registration of institutions that participated in the previous year was complemented with an open call for new applicants through advertisement in newspapers and through the NIRF website.

A record number of 7,692 unique institutions responded and submitted 14,163 applications across various categories and subject domains, offering themselves for ranking in "Overall," category-specific, or domain-specific rankings.