IIT-Madras & IISc-Bengaluru maintain NIRF dominance

NEW DELHI: IIT-Madras has topped National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025 in the "overall" category for the seventh straight year while IISc-Bengaluru has been ranked India's best university for the tenth year in a row.

For the first time, a private university - Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Karnataka - entered top three in university category. In colleges list, Delhi University institutions continued to dominate, with Hindu College at No. 1 and total 31 DU colleges in the top 100.A record 7,692 institutions submitted 14,163 applications this year across 17 categories. Announcing the tenth edition of NIRF on Thursday, education minister Dharmendra Pradhan said, "The cornerstone of India rankings has been its success in cultivating a culture of data governance within higher education institutions...

enabling internal benchmarking and long-term strategic planning.""At macro level, this data serves as a valuable resource for national policy formulation and sectoral analysis. A multi-layered data validation is undertaken... scrutinised for inconsistencies, anomalies and potential inflation," he said. In the "overall" category, IISc-Bengaluru retained second place, followed by IIT-Bombay and IIT-Delhi, both holding their positions.

IIT-Madras also led the engineering, innovation, and sustainable development goals (SDG) lists.Among universities, IISc-Bengaluru stayed at No. 1 and JNU-New Delhi at No. 2. MAHE, which first entered top 10 in 2019, continued its steady rise to be ranked third this year. Delhi-based Jamia Millia Islamia slipped one slot to fourth. After the inaugural 2016 rankings, BITS-Pilani returned to the top 10 at seventh position, followed by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham-Coimbatore as the third private university in the top 10.

In colleges, DU's Miranda House retained second spot, with Hansraj College and Kirori Mal College next. St Stephen's College, third last year, slipped to fifth. In engineering, nine IITs figured in the top 10 - IIT-Madras led the category for the tenth consecutive year, while IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay again at second and third. NIT-Tiruchirappalli was the only non-IIT in the top 10.The framework evaluates institutions on five groups of parameters - Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR); Research & Professional Practice (RP); Graduation Outcome (GO); Outreach & Inclusivity (OI); and Perception (PR) - with ranks assigned on total scores across these.In management, IIM-Ahmedabad stayed at No. 1, followed by IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Kozhikode. Seven IIMs made it to top 10, with IIT-Delhi the only technology institute on the list. MDI-Gurgaon and XLRI-Jamshedpur were 9th and 10th, respectively.In medical, AIIMS-Delhi was first, followed by PGIMER-Chandigarh and CMC-Vellore - all three retaining their positions. In dental, AIIMS-Delhi topped the list, while Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences-Chennai slipped to second. In pharmacy, Jamia Hamdard retained the top spot, while BITS-Pilani rose to second from third last year. In law, NLSIU-Bengaluru, NLU-Delhi, and Nalsar-Hyderabad were first, second and third, respectively.

For research institutions, IISc-Bengaluru ranked first, followed by IIT-Madras.Among open universities, IGNOU led, with Karnataka State Open University-Mysuru in second place.