IIT Madras Tops NIRF India Rankings 2025, IISc Bangalore Bags Second Spot
For the seventh consecutive year, IIT Madras secures the top position in overall category, while IIS, Bangalore bags the top spot in university and research institutions categories
NEW DELHI: The Union Education Ministry has 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.
Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan released the NIRF rankings at a programme in New Delhi.
For the seventh consecutive year, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras has secured the top rank 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.
Top 10 institutions in the overall category
- 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.
In university category, Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore has bagged the top spot followed by Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi and Manipal Academy of Higher Education, Manipal.
Releasing ‘India Rankings 2025’ under NIRF. #NIRF2025 #NEP2020 https://t.co/gRL8WYi1ne
— Dharmendra Pradhan (@dpradhanbjp) September 4, 2025
Jadavpur university, Kolkata topped the list among the state public university category while Anna University, Chennai and Panjab University have bagged the second and third place respectively. Andhra University in Visakhapatnam has got the fourth rank.
In the list research institutions, IIS, Bangalore has got the top spot followed by IIT Madars and IIT Delhi.
To view NIRF ranks in various categories, click here.
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 have been released annually since 2016. These ranks are used by students, and academic stakeholders to make informed decisions about higher education choices in India.
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