QS rankings: IIT Delhi jumps 27 ranks, tops India list, is 123 globally
For the first time in eight years, IIT Delhi emerged as the highest-ranked Indian institution in the QS World University Rankings 2026, trumping IIT Bombay, which had reigned supreme among the country's institutions in six editions of these rankings over the past decade.
Standing at 123 this year, IIT Delhi jumped 27 ranks compared to 150 last year. In contrast, IIT Bombay dropped 11 ranks to 129. With no Indian institution having made it to the global top 100 in these rankings so far, IIT Bombay's 118 last year is the closest the country's institutions have been to that mark.
Globally, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) topped the list for the 14th year, followed by Imperial College London, Stanford University, University of Oxford and Harvard University. For the number of institutions on the list overall, India ranked fourth (54) after the USA (192), the UK (90) and China (72).
Over the past decade, IITs Bombay and Delhi, and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) Bangalore, have stood in the top three positions among Indian institutions. The last time IIT Delhi was the highest ranked was in QS 2018 (172), while IISc was top-ranked in 2023 (155), and in 2016 and 2017. In all other years over the past decade, IIT Bombay topped its Indian peers.
This year, IIT Delhi's performance has been buoyed by an improvement across certain metrics. In response to questions, QS said that IIT Delhi made 'notable progress in Employer Reputation (+23 places), Citations per Faculty (+40), Employer Outcomes (+21), and especially in Sustainability, where the institution rose by an impressive 252 places.' It said: 'The substantial gain in Sustainability reflects both genuine improvements and more accurate data reporting.'
IIT Delhi scored better than IIT Bombay on metrics like citations per faculty (93.1 Delhi vs 82.9 Bombay), international student diversity (6.3 Delhi vs 1.5 Bombay), international research network (66.9 Delhi vs 46.6 Bombay) and sustainability (79.9 Delhi vs 75.2 Bombay).
QS described sustainability as 'our newest metric', which is 'still evolving'. 'It comprises over 50 indicators, with data coming from a mix of university submissions (which are subsequently validated by QS), public sources, bibliometric databases, and survey results. Many universities are still in the process of adapting to this complex framework and refining their reporting practices,' it said.
IIT Bombay scored better than IIT Delhi on metrics like academic reputation, employer reputation and employment outcomes – 72.6 vs 50.5, for instance, on employment outcomes.
Prof Vivek Buwa, Dean (Planning) and head of the rankings cell at IIT Delhi, highlighted the institute's performance on the key parameters listed.
On citations, he said: 'Some of the importance or success of publications of our colleagues and students is how many people are using it or citing it in their work. That is determined by citations per faculty… Over the years, IIT has advanced significantly in the research ecosystem — IIT is an Institution of Eminence. That status and the funding it received helped. With that grant, we set up equipment worth Rs 200-300 crore. The research facilities have helped with publications in good journals.'
Buwa said, 'The institute has started bilateral research collaborations with universities in different parts of the world. That has led to international visibility, and joint publications with international universities. That has also helped the institute.'
In the global rankings, the IITs dominate the top 10 Indian institutions. In addition to IIT Delhi and Bombay, IIT Madras (ranked 180, up from 227 last year) is the only other Indian institution to feature in the top 200 ranks globally. It has made it to the top 200 for the first time.
The others in the top 10 nationally are IIT Kharagpur (215), IIT Kanpur (222), IIT Guwahati (334) and IIT Roorkee (339).
Apart from the seven IITs, the Indian Institute of Science (219, down from 211 last year), Delhi University (328, same as last year), and Anna University (465, a sharp drop from 383 last year) are among the institutions in the list.
Of the ten, all of which are public institutions, five have seen an improvement in rank compared to last year, four saw a drop.
According to global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds, the number of Indian institutions in the rankings has seen a 390% increase over the past decade — from 11 in 2015 to 54 this year, up from 46 last year. With eight new institutions from India appearing in the rankings, this is the most that any country has added to the list this year, according to QS. Globally, over 1,500 institutions made it to the rankings this year.
Of the eight new Indian institutions on the list this year, seven are private, with IIT Gandhinagar (rank 801-850) being the exception. Ashoka University and Shiv Nadar University — both with a rank of 1201-1400 — Christ (Deemed to be University) in Bengaluru (1401+), Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology (1001-1200), and Lovely Professional University (901-950) are among the other institutions on the list.
Asked about the new Indian institutions this year, QS said: 'This increase is the result of a combination of factors. Some of these institutions submitted data to QS for the first time, while others may have participated previously but only met the full eligibility and inclusion criteria this year.'
Some Indian institutions made it to the top 100 only for certain metrics. In terms of faculty citations, the metric with the second highest weightage (20%), eight institutions made the cut, with the Indian Institute of Science ranking 15 globally, a drop of four ranks from last year. Anna University followed with a global rank of 23. Among the IITs, IIT BHU (Varanasi) performed best on this indicator, ranking 47 globally.
On employment reputation, which carries a 15% weightage in the overall score, IIT Bombay fared best among Indian institutions, with a global rank of 39. While five Indian institutions were in the global top 100 for this metric, only two made it to the top 100 in employment outcomes (weightage of 5%) — University of Delhi and University of Mumbai.
However, on academic reputation, which carries the highest weightage (30%), no Indian institution made it to the global top 100. Of the 46 Indian institutions that featured in last year's rankings, only five saw an improvement in their global ranking on this metric — IITs Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Kanpur, and Chandigarh University. Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) performed the same, while the rest saw a decline.
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