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Journalism of Courage
With BITS Pilani entering the top 10 in the ‘universities’ category of the NIRF rankings this year for the first time since 2016, Prof V Ramgopal Rao, its Group Vice-Chancellor pointed to what worked for the institution this year and the issues he thinks are to be addressed in the rankings.
Prof Rao, who is a former director of IIT Delhi, and has been a faculty member at both IIT Bombay and IIT Delhi, co-authored a paper – ‘Unpacking Inconsistencies in the NIRF rankings’ – published in the journal Current Science last year. The paper raised concerns about the reliability of the rankings, flagging issues like the “subjective” nature of the ‘perception’ parameter that is included in the rankings, inadequate transparency in the methodology, and reliance on data that is self-reported by institutions.
Could you tell us about the concerns flagged in the article – the ‘perception’ parameter, self-reported data, etc?
Prof V Ramgopal Rao: This year, as per the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), we (BITS Pilani) are the number one private engineering university (in the engineering category, BITS ranked 11th this year, after IITs and an NIT). If you look at admissions, 2.42 lakh students are competing for 3,300 seats. No other institute can come anywhere close in the private sector. But still, BITS Pilani was not the number one university until this year in the private sector. Our ‘perception’ (score on the parameter), even this year, is lower compared to some of the private universities, which have just come up in the last 10-15 years. So that shows the concern that I have often been raising about ‘perception’.
It is a black box. Who receives these mailers? Who inputs the data? What is the sanctity of that perception… (it) has been a big challenge.
BITS Pilani – a 60-year-old institute – has scored so low on perception. We got 19 out of 100 last year. These perceptions have been a challenge now for many of us. The kind of things some private universities do is often problematic.
Even on the research side, I think NIRF puts undue emphasis. If you look at the research parameters, there are two ways they look at things. One is the number of publications. The other is the quality of publications. That is one metric where people are gaming things left and right. In many institutions, self-citations are a big challenge.
(The NIRF ranking report for 2025 states: “Elimination of self-citations at institution level introduced in 2024 for all categories and subject domains was continued for India Rankings 2025.”)
NIRF Rankings 2025 | Overall Category | Engineering Colleges | Top Universities | Top Colleges | Top MBA Colleges | Law | State Public Universities | Medical | Research |
The publication count, the way it is done today…we need to introduce more integrity-related measures.
Since international rankings also have an aspect of perception, how do you think NIRF’s ‘perception’ parameter can become more credible?
Prof V Ramgopal Rao: One of the ways to do this is (to determine) who should participate in the perception ranking. Academicians…people who are a part of academies, like elected fellows. Others can be employers. It cannot be that you send mailers to all kinds of people.
We all have challenges with the international rankings because of the perception scores. Those are private agencies that are ranking. But when the Government of India is doing it, there is no vested interest. I think it is very easy to fix these metrics and make them robust. That’s what NIRF needs to do. The research integrity negative marking this year (negative scores for retracted research papers)… I’m happy that finally we have started talking about it, and made some corrections this year.
You have raised self-reported data as a concern in your paper. How do you think that can be addressed?
Prof V Ramgopal Rao: Now, we submit data to NAAC (National Assessment and Accreditation Council), to NIRF, to AICTE (All India Council for Technical Education)…to multiple agencies. Why can’t there be one portal where you enter all this data? These agencies could have their own ways to verify that, and use that common portal for rankings. So, you don’t need to submit (data) separately. One common portal for data entry, in my opinion, will solve this problem to some extent.
Many of these issues will get sorted out if they do random surveys. Select a few institutions for a physical check and verification of data that is submitted.
Another concern that you raised in your paper is that of transparency in the methodology. Are there aspects of these rankings that you think are not made quite clear?
Prof V Ramgopal Rao: There is no reason for NIRF to hide anything. They are not a private agency. So, I think NIRF can be much more transparent. Simple things they can do is just transparently display all the data submitted by the institutions. Then, show the methodology for how scores are calculated.
When the government ranks you, it is a serious matter. It is not a private agency where we can decide whether to participate or not. So, transparency is of utmost importance.
What do you think has contributed to BITS rising in the rankings this year, and where do you think it needs improvement?
Prof V Ramgopal Rao: One thing that has significantly improved now, because of our investments over a period of time, is research outcome. The number of PhD students today at BITS is over 2,500. That number was maybe 700-800 five years ago. That has reflected in the research output.
The other thing we have been doing well in is placements. Median salaries are growing at something like 11 per cent every year.
In research, we have the scope to double our output compared to where we are today. But research costs a lot of money. It costs us Rs 25 lakh to support a PhD student during the student’s five years. That is a lot of money. If I want to increase that number, to increase my research output, you need to double the investments there. These are challenges. We are now beginning to approach industries for funding.
