NIRF Rankings 2026 for higher education institutions soon; check parameters, new categories

The Ministry of Education (MoE) will declare the NIRF 2026 rankings for higher education institutions (HEIs) soon. The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) rankings for various colleges and universities will be announced in 16 categories such as engineering, management, medicine, university, law, research, and agriculture, including other fields.

The union education minister Pralhad Joshi will announce the NIRF ranking 2026 pdf list for subject-wise top colleges in India and 11th edition of the NIRF rankings will be available on NIRF’s official website at nirfindia.org.

Notably, last year, the education ministry announced a new category on sustainable development goals to list the NIRF rankings.

Also read NIRF 2026 Rankings Soon: IIT Madras, Hindu College among last year’s category toppers

NIRF 2026 Rankings: Negative marking, bandwidth

The parameters on which the colleges will be ranked consist of teaching, learning, resources, research and professional practice, graduation outcomes, outreach and inclusivity, and peer perception.

Moreover, in 2025, the government also introduced stricter rules and added more parameters for evaluating and ranking colleges and universities across the country. It also included negative marking for the retraction of research papers.

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, open universities, skill universities, and state-funded public universities.

The NBA studies frameworks, parameters and metric, using data from the institutions and third-party sources such as Web of Science, Scopus, and Derwent Innovation to rank colleges and universities.

Also read Jamia Millia students allege lower rank-holders given seats over toppers, protest

NIRF 2026 ranking parameters for HEIs

The NIRF rankings for different universities and colleges are done across various parameters as given below.

Teaching, Learning & Resources (TLR)

The TLR parameter assesses colleges as per their number of students enrolled and teaching faculty. Here are the 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)

Under the RP criteria, institutes are marked as per their quality and quantity of publications published. Other parameters include:

• 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 GO factor counts the total number of students graduated and/or completed their PhDs.

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

Outreach and Inclusivity (OI)

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

The peer perception criteria accounts for feedback from peers and former employees associated with the college.

• Academic Peers and Employers (PR)

The NIRF rankings 2026 list will have the HEIs ranked in the top 100 along with rank bands from 101-150 and 151-200.