NIRF Overall Ranking List 2023 Released

NIRF Overall Ranking List 2023 Released

NIRF Overall Ranking List 2023 released on Monday by the Minister of State for Education, Rajkumar Ranjan Singh, Continuing its reign as the best higher education institution in the country, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras has secured the top spot for the fifth consecutive year in the latest national rankings.

The latest edition of the National Institute Ranking Framework (NIRF) revealed no major upsets in terms of the results, with the IITs continuing their dominance in most categories. IIT-Madras also bagged the first position in engineering for the eighth year in a row and was assessed as the second-best research institution in the country, narrowly missing the top spot by 2.2 marks, which was claimed by the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru.

Interestingly, IISc, which the QS World University Rankings has adjudged as the top research university globally, ahead of Harvard, Princeton University and MIT, was edged out to the second position in the ‘overall’ category for the fifth consecutive year. A closer look at the score breakdown shows IISc (with 83.09 marks) falls behind IIT-Madras (86.69 marks) on parameters such as student strength, online education, published and granted patents, and the number of economically and socially deprived students.

Further, this category is dominated by Institutes of National Importance set up by an Act of Parliament. Of the 100 institutions in the ‘overall’ category, 36 are INIs such as IITs and NITs, 26 are state universities, and seven are central universities.

Ranks third to tenth in the ‘overall’ category have been secured by IIT-Delhi, IIT-Bombay, IIT-Kanpur, All Indian Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) in Delhi, IIT-Kharagpur, IIT-Roorkee, IIT-Guwahati and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). The top 10 institutions under this category are largely consistent with last year’s rankings, with only AIIMS gaining three positions and moving up from Rank 9 to Rank 6 this year.

The NIRF-2023 report also acknowledges the consistent rankings of top-performing higher education institutions over the years. “…the ranking of institutions has largely remained consistent, especially amongst 25 top-ranked institutions, over the years, although individual ranks might have changed by a few slots for some institutions due to performance variations across institutions on some of the parameters. This demonstrates that the set of parameters that are being used for ranking are compact, coherent and inter-dependent,” the report states.

NIRF-2023 assessed 5,543 higher education institutions across 13 categories – ‘overall’, universities, medical, engineering, management, law, architecture, colleges, research institutions, pharmacy, dental, agriculture and allied sectors, and innovation. The agriculture category was introduced this year.

The participating institutions were evaluated on five criteria — teaching, learning and resources (30%); research and professional practice (30%); graduation outcomes (20%); outreach and inclusivity (10%); and perception (10%).

While speaking at the NIRF-2023 launch, Anil Kumar Nassa, Secretary of the National Board of Accreditation which publishes the NIRF rankings annually, said these parameters align with India’s “culture and ethos.” He emphasised that the NIRF was introduced to address the limitations of international rankings, which often overlook country-specific contexts when assessing universities

In the universities’ bracket, IISc, JNU, Jamia Millia Islamia, Jadavpur University and Banaras Hindu University have been ranked top five, in that order. Almost half of the top 100 universities are privately owned. Among them are Manipal Academy of Higher Education-Manipal (Rank 6), Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Rank 7), Vellore Institute of Technology (Rank 8), Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences (Rank 13), Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan (Rank 15), and Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (Rank 16). Interestingly, Ashoka University, which made its NIRF debut in 2021 at the 95th position and climbed to 88th rank last year, is missing from the top 100 universities’ list this time

Delhi University’s Miranda House is the country’s best college for the seventh year in a row, followed by Hindu College, Presidency College in Chennai, PSGR Krishnammal College for Women in Coimbatore, and St. Xavier’s College in Kolkata.

The IITs continue to showcase their engineering dominance, securing eight out of the top 10 ranks. Leading the pack is IIT-Madras, followed by the IITs in Delhi, Mumbai, Kanpur, Roorkee, Kharagpur, Guwahati and Hyderabad, occupying ranks 2 to 8, respectively. Notably, Jadavpur University made its debut in the top 10 club at the tenth position, moving up from rank 11 last year. In this category, of the top 100, 53 positions are occupied by IITs and NITs.

While institutions funded and run by the Union government dominate most NIRF categories, state universities outnumber central institutions in the medical category. Here, of the top 100, 17 are state universities as opposed to 12 centrally-run and funded institutions.

While AIIMS-Delhi, PGIMER in Chandigarh, and Christian Medical College in Vellore have been consistently ranked at the top in medicine, ever since the category was introduced in NIRF-2018, IIM-Ahmedabad, IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Kozhikode are the best B-schools, in that order.

In other insights, also consistent with previous years, the NIRF-2023 report points out that only 35% faculty in engineering institutes outside the top 100 category have doctoral qualifications, up from 33% last year. “This is a serious handicap since mentorship received during the doctoral training can play a vital role in preparing the faculty for a teaching career in higher education,” the report states. And the average annual salary of engineering students has gone up from Rs 3.5 lakh per annum to Rs 4.5 lakh per annum.

As much as 66.15% of the high quality papers or HCPs come from the top 100 engineering institutions, with remaining 1,139 participating and eligible engineering institutions contributing only 33.85% of HCPs, it adds. “However, in case of management, pharmacy and research institutions, 87.01%, 85.07% and 88.23% HCP is attributable to the top 100 institutions respectively,” the report states.

In NIRF 2022 rankings, IISc Bangalore ranked first amongst all institutions under research and universities category, it ranked second in the overall ranking. IIT Madras secured the first position in the overall ranking category.