NIRF India Rankings 2025: The Union Education Ministry today released the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) India Rankings 2025, listing the top-performing universities and colleges across the country. The rankings serve as a benchmark for evaluating the quality of higher education in India.
For the seventh consecutive year, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has secured the top position in the overall category, followed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore. Notably, IISc Bengaluru had earlier topped the rankings in 2017 and 2018.
The top 10 institutions in the overall category are:
- Indian Institute of Technology Madras
- Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru
- Indian Institute of Technology Bombay
- Indian Institute of Technology Delhi
- Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur
- Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur
- Indian Institute of Technology Roorkee
- All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Delhi
- Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Delhi
- Banaras Hindu University (BHU), Varanasi
This year's rankings assessed institutions across nine broad categories, Overall, Universities, Colleges, Research Institutions, Innovation, State Public Universities, Open Universities, Skill Universities, and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). In addition, eight subject-specific areas were evaluated, including Engineering, Management, Pharmacy, Medical, Architecture & Planning, Law, Dental, and Agriculture & Allied Sciences.
Vineet Joshi, Secretary of Higher Education, said the framework has been refined further to ensure fairness and credibility.
"Noteworthy changes in India Rankings 2025 included the introduction of negative marking for retracted articles. Moreover, the removal of self-citations under research and professional practices-applied across all categories and subject domains last year-was continued this year as well," Joshi said.
Highlighting the government's role in strengthening higher education, Union Minister of State for Education Sukanta Majumdar said flagship schemes have significantly boosted innovation and teaching quality.
"The schemes such as One Nation-One Subscription, the Global Initiative for Academic Networks, and the Smart India Hackathon have fostered quality teaching and innovation," Majumdar said.
The NIRF India Rankings, conducted annually since 2016, are widely used by students, and academic stakeholders to make informed decisions about higher education choices in India.
