London, 9 June 2021: Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) and Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc Bangalore) emerge as the Top Three universities in India, as per QS World Rankings 2022.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay, which retains its status as Indian number-one for the fourth consecutive year. Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) has become India’s second-best university.

QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, has today released the eighteenth edition of the world’s most-consulted international university rankings.

The QS World University Rankings 2022* sees Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) celebrating an unprecedented, unbroken decade as the world’s best university.

In this edition, three Indian universities place among the global top 200. There are also record-breaking performances for three of India’s Institutes of Technology.

India’s leading university is Indian Institute of Technology Bombay, which retains its status as Indian number-one for the fourth consecutive year. It ranks joint-177th, having fallen five places over the last year.

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi (IIT Delhi) has become India’s second-best university, having risen from 193rd to 185th over the last twelve months. It has done so by overtaking Indian Institute of Science Bangalore (IISc Bangalore), which ranks joint-186th.

Beyond the top three, there are numerous encouraging results for the Indian higher education sector this year. These include:

• Indian Institute of Technology Madras has risen twenty places, and now ranks joint-255th. This is its highest position since 2017.
• IIT Kanpur (277th) has leapt back into the top-300 and attains its highest rank since 2016.
• IIT Kharagpur has achieved a record-breaking performance. It ranks 280th. While this only represents a one-place year-on-year rise, it is sufficient to help it to its highest-ever position in the QS World University Rankings.
• IIT Guwahati (joint-395th) enters the global top-400 for the first time ever.
• IIT Hyderabad (591st-600th band) enjoys its first year ever in the top 600.

Jawaharlal Nehru University makes its debut in the QS World University Rankings, placing in the 561st-570th band.

In total, 35 Indian institutions of higher education are featured in the published table. Of these 35:

7 have improved their position.

7 have declined in rank.

14 have neither improved nor declined in rank.

7 are new participants in the analysis.

India – Inside the Data

As a sector, Indian universities have made consistent progress in QS’s Academic Reputation (AR) metric: 20 of India’s 35 entrants have improved their AR scores, while only 9 have experienced drops in AR rank.

Indian universities have also improved their research impact, relative to global competitors. 17 of India’s 35 universities have seen a rise in the Citations per Faculty (CPF) score, against only twelve drops in CPF.

According to the CPF indicator, when universities are adjusted for faculty size, IISc Bangalore is the world’s top research university, achieving a perfect score of 100/100 for this metric. IIT Guwahati (41st for CPF) is also a top-50 research institution.

Conversely, Indian universities continue to struggle in QS’s measure of institutional teaching capacity. 23 of India’s 35 universities have suffered declines in QS’s Faculty/Student Ratio indicator, with only six recording improvements. No Indian university ranks among the top 250 for Faculty/Student Ratio.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology achieves a record-extending tenth consecutive year as world number-one. The University of Oxford has risen to 2nd for the first time since 2006, while Stanford University and the University of Cambridge share 3rd spot.

Ben Sowter, Director of Research at QS, said: “This year’s edition of the QS World University Rankings demonstrates the excellent work that many Indian universities are doing to improve their research footprint, with positive consequences for their reputation on the global stage. Conversely, our dataset also suggests that the Indian higher education sector is still struggling to provide adequate teaching capacity. Further expansion of provision – both within universities and across the sector as a whole – will be necessary if India is to continue reaching new heights.”