NIRF 2025: How India’s colleges are scored and ranked

The Ministry of Education will announce the rankings for Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) through its NIRF ranking 2025 today at 11 am. The 10th edition of the NIRF ranking will be accessed through the NIRF’s official website at nirfindia.org. NIRF 2025 LIVE.

The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings are done on the basis of frameworks, parameters and metrics, using data from the institutions and third-party sources such as Web of Science, Scopus, and Derwent Innovation, as per the official NIRF pdf.

The parameters cover teaching, learning and resources; research and professional practices; graduate outcomes; outreach and inclusivity; and perception.

Institutions that participated in the previous year’s NIRF rankings have applied for the pre-registration, while those that took part for the first time, applied through open advertisements.

The NIRF ranking system came into force on September 29, 2015 by the Ministry of Education, which established certain parameters to rank HEIs across the country.

Also read NIT Karnataka director: In AI era, BTech courses need both core and computers, and a curriculum overhaul

New categories in NIRF rankings, negative marking

Since 2015, the NIRF rankings have been based on these frameworks. The National Board of Accreditation (NBA) will rank colleges and universities in 16 categories including overall university, college, engineering, management , pharmacy, law, medical, architecture, dental, innovation, agriculture and allied sectors, research institutions.

The board added three new categories from the NIRF 2024, which are open universities, skill universities, and state-funded public universities. Besides the ministry of education also introduced negative marking for the retraction of research papers in its rules and parameters.

Each NIRF ranking 2025 PDF will have the higher educational institutions (HEIs) ranked in the top 100 along with rank bands 101-150 and 151-200. Moreover, the education ministry declared its 1st NIRF ranking for several categories, in 2016, after its launch on September 29, 2015.

The college category was not part of the NIRF rankings in 2016. It was introduced in the NIRF rankings 2017, just a year after it published its 1st edition. Since its establishment, the ministry has been following certain parameters and NIRF frameworks to rank HEIs across the country.

Also read US F1 visa term limits will impact high-achievers, STEM students: Study abroad consultants

NIRF 2025: Rankings Parameters

Higher education Institutions in India are placed in the NIRF ranking on the basis of parameters and frameworks.

Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR)

Under the TLR parameter, institutes are assessed through the strength of students and faculty, including several other factors.

• Student Strength including Doctoral Students (SS)
• Faculty-student ratio with emphasis on permanent faculty (FSR)
• Combined metric for Faculty with PhD (or equivalent) and Experience (FQE)
• Financial Resources and their Utilisation (FRU)
• Online Education(OE)
• Multiple Entry/Exit, Indian Knowledge System and Regional languages (MIR)

Research and Professional Practice (RP)

The RP factor in the making of the NIRF rankings includes quality and quantity of publications published by the participated-institutions.

• Combined metric for Publications (PU)
• Combined metric for Quality of Publications (QP)
• IPR and Patents: Published and Granted (IPR)
• Footprint of Projects and Professional Practice (FPPP)
• Publications & Citations in SDGs (PSDGs)

Graduation Outcomes (GO)

The total number of students who graduated and or completed their PhDs are considered under this NIRF rankings parameter.

• Metric for University Examinations (GUE)
• Metric for Number of Ph.D. Students Graduated (GPHD)

Outreach and Inclusivity (OI)

An important factor considered for the NIRF rankings where institutes are evaluated on the basis of enrollment of foreign students, infrastructure for physically challenged students, admission of women, among others.

• Percentage of Students from Other States/Countries (Region Diversity RD)
• Percentage of Women (Women Diversity WD)
• Economically and Socially Challenged Students (ESCS)
• Facilities for Physically Challenged Students (PCS)
• Perception (PR) Ranking

Peer Perception

This counts for feed back from peers and former employees worked in various HIEs.

• Academic Peers and Employers (PR)