NIRF Ranking 2025 – The Ministry of Education (MoE), GoI, released the NIRF Rankings 2025 on September 4, 2025. The rankings have been released for 17 categories. A new category has been added – Sustainable Development Goals, which is topped by IIT Madras.
IIT Madras topped the Overall category, followed by IISc Bangalore in 2nd, and IIT Bombay in third place. IISc Bangalore topped the University category, with JNU in second, and Manipal Academy of Higher Education-Manipal in 3rd place. Jamia Milia Islamia, who occupied the 3rd place in the last edition, was pushed to the 4th place.
While there were speculations that this year’s rankings will exclude the Medical category, no such things happened. Like in the previous editions, the medical rankings were also released. The category, as expected, is topped by AIIMS Delhi, with PGIMER Chandigarh and Christian Medical College Vellore in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively.
The NIRF Ranking 2024 were published on August 12, 2025.
This year the rankings were dogged by controversies, including data integrity issues. A PIL was filed in the Madras High Court, which led to the court slapping a stay notice of the publication of the rankings. The PIL has since been dismissed.
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Table of Contents
NIRF Ranking 2025 – Key Features
| Particulars | Description |
| Who publishes NIRF Ranking | The Ministry of Education (MoE), Government of India |
| Full form of NIRF | The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) |
| Official website | Click Here |
| Frequency of NIRF Ranking publication | Released Annually |
| When is the NIRF Rankings released | Around August each year NIRF 2025 rankings will be OUT on September 4, 2025. |
| NIRF 2025 Ranking notification | The notification regrading the release of NIRF Ranking 2025 is out at nirfindia.org. This is what the notification says: ” India Rankings 2025 will be released on 04th September 2025.” |
| Categories for which rankings are available | The rankings are currently available for the following 16 categories: Overall Universities Colleges Research Institutions Engineering Management Pharmacy Medical Dental Law Architecture and Planning Agriculture and Allied Sectors Innovation Open University Skill University State Public University Sustainable Development Goals (New category added) |
| Ranking Parameters | Read – Official NIRF Ranking Parameters |
| NIRF FAQs | Read Here |
NIRF Ranking 2025 – Notification Released
The Ministry of Education has notified that the NIRF 2025 rankings will be made public on September 4, 2025. The notification is released online at nirfindia.org.
This is what the notification says regarding the release of NIRF Rankings 2025.
What’s NEW in the NIRF Rankings 2025?
The NIRF 2025 rankings should be out in September 2025. Here are a few changes that might be made to the NIRF Rankings this year.
- The rankings may exclude the Medical category. According to news published by portals like shiksha.com, the rankings could be excluded due to persistent discrepancies in data submitted by participating institutes. If that happens, it could land a body blow to the NIRF Rankings and its credibility.
- Introduction of negative marking – In a welcome change, negative marking has been introduced for withdrawing research publications. The penalty for the time being has been kept low, with provisions to increase it if needed. The negative marking will presumably discourage institutions from publishing research papers just to get extra marks in the ranking parameters, only to withdraw the papers once the ranking process is over. Such types of activities by institutions do a disservice to the education sector.
NIRF Rankings 2025 – Discipline-wise Methodology for India Rankings
The National Institutional Ranking Framework has devised a comprehensive ranking methodology for every discipline.
To read the ranking methodology for your chosen discipline – Click Here
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NIRF Rankings – Previous Years’ Trends
The key insights from NIRF Rankings 2024 are given below.
- The NIRF 2024 rankings wee published for 16 categories.
- Three categories were newly added, viz., State Public Universities, Open Universities, and Skill Universities.
- IIT Madras marked its sixth straight year at the top in the Overall category, while in the Engineering category, it achieved a historic ninth straight year at the top.
- In the Management category, IIM Ahmedabad marked it fifth consecutive year at the top.
- Hindu College took the crown from Miranda House to be ranked the best college in the country.
- AIIMS Delhi (No. 1), PGIMER Chandigarh (No. 2), and Christian Medical College (No. 3), Vellore, were the top medical colleges. It was the seventh straight year for AIIMS Delhi atop the rankings.
- Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences, Chennai, was ranked 1st in the Dental category.
- The Innovation category was topped by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur.
- Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), New Delhi, was the top ranked institute in the Agriculture and Allied Sectors.
- The newly introduced State Public Universities category was topped by Anna University, Chennai.