For the second consecutive year, IIT-Delhi ranked highest among Indian institutions in the QS World University Rankings 2027, climbing five places to 118th globally — the highest ever for an Indian institution, first achieved by IIT-Bombay in the 2025 rankings.
IIT-Bombay, which topped the country’s list in the past, dropped from 129 to 134. Last year, too, it had dropped 11 ranks.
Globally, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list for the 15th year, followed by Stanford University, Imperial College, University of Oxford and Harvard University.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) continue to dominate the country’s top 10 list. Besides IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay, IIT-Madras (ranked 170, up from 180 last year) is the only other Indian institution in the top 200 globally.
The others in the top 10 nationally are IIT-Kharagpur (205), IIT-Kanpur (221), Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore (221), University of Delhi (322), IIT-Roorkee (335) and IIT-Guwahati (349). Among these, IISc and IIT-Guwahati have dropped in the rankings as compared to last year.
In fact, IISc has seen its rank slip consistently over the past few years — from 155 in 2023, when it was the top ranked Indian institution, to 219 last year and 221 this year. While it has a high score of 99.9 on the citations per faculty indicator, it does not fare as well on employer reputation (48.8), and employment outcomes (22.6), which are the metrics where IIT-Delhi and IIT-Bombay outperform the premier research institute.
Apart from these, Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, a private institution in Himachal Pradesh, has also made it to India’s top 10 list with a rank of 452, up from 503 last year.
In a statement to The Indian Express, Ben Sowter, QS Senior Vice President, explained the performance by metrics. “IIT-D rose to 39th in the world in employer reputation, and to 60th in the citations per faculty indicators. Additionally, it rose 60 places to rank 280th in employment outcomes. Despite dropping 15 places in academic reputation, it still scores highly in the area, ranking 157th. In the past five years, IIT-D has risen 67 places, with this year’s ranking in citations its best ever — just three years ago, in 2024, it ranked 182nd in this indicator. These two areas are key to IIT-D achieving such an outstanding rank in 2027,” he said.
Explaining the reasons for IIT-Bombay’s drop in rankings, Sowter said: “Like IIT-D, IIT-Bombay performs exceptionally well in the employer reputation indicator, rising to 32nd in the world. It also rose to 176th in employment outcomes, and, despite dropping, it ranked 126th — and top in India — in the academic reputation indicator. However, a 25-place fall to 161 in citations per faculty has impacted its ranking this year, as do low scores across the global engagement lens (international faculty, international students and international research network). In this area, global peers are gaining momentum while institutions across India are improving at a comparatively slower pace.”
On Shoolini University of Biotechnology and Management Sciences, Sowter said: “Shoolini has improved in citations per faculty (76th), sustainability (518th), international faculty (539th) and employer reputation (576th). The relative intensity and volume of research carried out at Shoolini is really driving its improvement over recent years.”
“In the context of India, Shoolini stands out in this area as a private university, ranking 10th in India for citations per faculty. The next best private institution in India in this area is Birla Institute of Technology and Science, which ranks 420th in the world for citations and 25th in India. The 14 Indian institutions that rank outside the top 800 in this area are all private or not-for-profit institutions, and of the 18 institutions improving in this area in 2027, 13 are public and five are private. This suggests that both private and public institutions have significant roles to play in India’s research and discovery capabilities,” Sowter said.
The latest edition of QS Rankings features 52 Indian universities, down from 54 last year. For the number of institutions on the list overall, India ranked fifth (52) after the US (184), UK (93), China (85) and Germany (60). The number of Indian institutions in the rankings has seen a 271% increase over the past decade — from 11 in 2015 to 52 this year. Globally, over 1,500 institutions made it to the rankings this year.
Beyond the IITs, Vellore Institute of Technology recorded the country’s biggest jump, climbing 94 ranks to 597th globally. BITS-Pilani climbed 93 places to 575, and Jamia Millia Islamia climbed over 75 ranks to 686 this time, entering India’s top 20.
Some Indian institutions made it to the top 100 only for certain metrics. In terms of citations per faculty, the metric with the second highest weightage (20%), 11 institutions made the cut, with IISc Bangalore ranking 21 globally, dropping six ranks from last year, followed by Anna University with a global rank of 69.
Among the IITs, IIT-Roorkee performed best on this indicator, ranking 50, while IIT BHU (Varanasi), which ranked 47 last year globally, dropped to 59 this time. Bharathiar University and Shoolini ranked 75th and 76th globally under this indicator.
On employer reputation, which carries 15% weightage in the overall score, IIT-Bombay fared best among Indian institutions with a global rank of 32, up from 39 last year, followed by IIT-Delhi (39), IIT-Kanpur (78), IIT-Madras (81), Symbiosis International (85) and IIT-Kharagpur (88).
Only two Indian institutions made it to the top 100 in the employment outcomes metric (weightage of 5%) — University of Mumbai and University of Delhi. And on academic reputation, which carries the highest weightage (30%), no Indian institution made it to the global top 100.
Asked what remains the barrier for Indian institutes to break into the world’s top 100 list, Sowter said:”International engagement as well as faculty-student ratio — at a time when Indian institutions are seeking to widen participation and the National Education Policy (NEP) has set out the ambition to achieve a 50% Gross Enrolment Rate by 2050 — are significant challenges for universities in India. Academic reputation and the impact and intensity of research are two key areas where Indian institutions are continuing to flourish, but key to entering the global top 100 is being able to demonstrate holistic, comprehensive performance across all nine indicators that the QS World University Rankings measure.”
While releasing the rankings, QS pointed to established systems being “under pressure”: “India’s comparative position is clearest against a global landscape in which many established systems are under pressure: Germany sees 78% of its ranked institutions decline and the US 67%, reflecting both the redistribution of research investment and talent towards Asia and longer-term demographic stagnation across much of the West. India, by contrast, enters the coming decades with one of the world’s largest youth populations and a rapidly expanding participation base.”
“The data suggest that the principal pressures on the US system are concentrated in research impact and internationalisation… one of the most significant long-term trends is the gradual erosion of the United States’ advantage in international engagement. Over the past decade, the number of US universities in the global top 200 for international student ratio has halved, from 28 to 14, while the number in the top 200 for international faculty ratio has fallen from 15 to eight,” QS told The Indian Express.
“This does not mean that the US is no longer a leading destination for international talent, but it does indicate that competing destinations are becoming increasingly successful in attracting students and academics from around the world,” QS added.
IIT-Delhi ranked highest among Indian institutions in the QS World University Rankings 2027. (File Photo) 
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