Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad and the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, continue to retain their top spots in the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), consecutively for the fifth and seventh time, respectively.
Union Minister of Education, Dharmendra Pradhan, today released the India Rankings 2025, which implements the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) drafted for this purpose by the Ministry of Education in 2015.
The Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras cemented its position at the top in the NIRF 2025, retaining the 1st rank in the Overall category for the seventh consecutive year (2019–2025) and in Engineering for the tenth consecutive year (2016–2025). It also topped in the newly introduced Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) category and the Innovation category.
In the Universities category, the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, maintained its dominance, topping the list for the tenth consecutive year (2016–2025) and leading the Research Institutions category for the fifth year in a row (2021–2025).
In Medical, AIIMS New Delhi retained the top rank for the eighth consecutive year (2018–2025) and also ranked 8th in the Overall category, showing a slight drop from 6th and 7th positions in 2023 and 2024, respectively.
In the Colleges category, Hindu College secured the 1st position for the second consecutive year, taking over from Miranda House, which held the spot from 2017 to 2023. Notably, six of the top 10 colleges in the Colleges category are from Delhi, underlining the capital’s dominance. These include: Hindu College, Miranda House, Hans Raj College, Kirori Mal College, St. Stephen’s College, and Atma Ram Sanatan Dharm College.
IIT Roorkee topped the Architecture and Planning discipline for the fifth year in a row (2021–2025), and National Law School of India University, Bengaluru remained the leader in Law for the eighth consecutive year (2018–2025).
Addressing the gathering, Pradhan said that the NIRF-2025 rankings reflect the strength of our institutions and the promise of our students. He congratulated all the institutions featured in this year’s rankings. Union Education Minister expressed happiness in knowing that NIRF has become a national benchmark.
“NEP 2020 laid down a roadmap for the development of our HEIs, including improving their accreditation and that NIRF emerged as a trusted pillar in the journey of making Bharat a knowledge super power. Everyone has to set higher benchmarks in the accreditation frameworks,” he said.
The Minister further said he was confident that NIRF would evolve as one of the best accreditation frameworks, involve more data-driven approaches, include more ranking parameters and categories and on-board more institutions going forward.
The Minister called upon all the academic institutions to become thriving grounds for innovation and entrepreneurship, join the NIRF framework and also aim to transform into most-sought after institutions globally.