THE Sustainability Rankings 2026: India ranks second globally with 110 universities; LPU tops the country

The Times Higher Education (THE) Sustainability Rankings 2026, released today, show that India has the second-highest number of universities in the list, with 110 institutions featured. Asia leads overall, with 962 of the 1,646 ranked universities coming from 116 countries and territories.

According to THE, Lovely Professional University (LPU) is the top-ranked Indian university, placed 23rd overall. It is followed by Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham in joint 37th place and JSS Academy of Higher Education and Research at joint 74th place.

The rankings measure how universities contribute to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through one overall list and 17 separate SDG rankings. The University of Manchester stayed at No. 1 globally, followed by Griffith University and Western Sydney University.

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Asian universities lead global rankings

THE said Asia performed strongly not just in the number of universities included, but also in the rankings. Five Asian universities made it to the global top 10, and universities from Asia topped 8 of the 17 SDG categories.

Some of Asia’s best-performing universities include Universiti Sains Malaysia, which ranked 5th globally, Hanyang University at 6th, Hokkaido University and Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia at joint 7th, and National Taiwan University at joint 10th.

Indian universities also did well in the individual SDG rankings. Manipal Academy of Higher Education ranked No. 1 in the world for SDG 5 (Gender Equality), while Lovely Professional University topped SDG 7 (Affordable and Clean Energy), according to THE.

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China also performed strongly in SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure). Harbin Institute of Technology ranked No. 1 in the world in this category and shared the top spot with universities from Hong Kong, Canada, the UK and Germany.

THE said that China and Malaysia are the only two Asian countries that ranked first in an SDG category and also performed strongly in the overall rankings.

Older IITs remain absent

Several top engineering institutes from India did not take part in the rankings. The older IITs, including IIT Bombay, IIT Delhi, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur and IIT Roorkee, continued to stay out of the Times Higher Education rankings.

The institutes have earlier said they have concerns about how the rankings are prepared, especially the lack of transparency in the method and the use of what they call subjective criteria, as per the report.

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THE Sustainability Rankings 2026

Key figures from the THE Sustainability Rankings 2026 are given below:

The United Kingdom also performed strongly in the rankings. Five universities from the UK ranked first, while three others shared the top spot in different SDG categories. The UK also has the highest number of universities in the overall top 200, according to THE.