India’s National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF)
Dr. Shadab Ahmed
Conventionally, the global university ranking systems have been dominated by the “big three” for analytics and insights into higher education — QS World University Rankings, Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Cut back to 2014–2015: we will not know for sure whether it was selection bias or hyper-critical anatomization by first-world countries, but none of India’s premier or principal institutions (IITs, NITs, IIMs) featured in these global rankings. In response to this perceived preferential prejudice, the Union Government decided to indigenise the higher education ranking system. The plan was simple — prepare Indian higher educational institutions to dominate the world league of rankings. But a vital question arose within the Indian educational ecosystem: would a ranking system modelled on global frameworks be relevant in the Indian context?
Thus, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) was established and approved by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (now the Ministry of Education) on 29 September 2015. Modelled on international benchmarks such as Research Output, Student-Faculty Ratio, Peer Perception, and others, it aimed to bring transparency and accountability to the higher education sector through a standardised ranking framework. Since the publication of the first NIRF report in 2016, the categories for ranking various institutions and universities have continually evolved. But while the NIRF offers a structured approach to evaluation, its implementation has often been ad hoc and controversial, lacking a truly strategic vision in a country that hosts both legacy institutions defining Indian academic prowess and emerging institutions reshaping the higher educational landscape.
The elephant in the room is the Research Output metric — contentious and deeply disputable. The Indian obsession with research orientation, disposition, and aptitude has, in many cases, circumvented and subverted research integrity. In random audits conducted to verify research claims, several reputable institutions were found to have inflated publication counts and imprecise citation rings. Though NIRF was conceptualised with altruistic intentions, it is inadvertently pushing the system toward a “publish or perish” culture, where research integrity is compromised. Universities are increasingly wandering into authorship marketplaces, seeking low-cost, dubious journals and low-quality publications simply to satisfy NIRF’s research metrics, rather than fostering a culture of high-quality, inquiry-driven scholarship.
Equally noteworthy is the concern around faculty quality. Faculty members are not being judged by their academic proficiency or ability to shape students, but largely by advanced qualifications and accumulated certifications. Moreover, a faculty member with a bundle of low-quality, mass-produced publications is often favoured in hiring and appraisal by uninformed HR departments over a faculty member who is an outstanding mentor and educator. This significantly jeopardises a prospective student’s learning and future. NIRF metrics also fail to adequately recognise employability skills — crucial for entrepreneurship, innovation, and industry readiness.
When national research and innovation are reduced to transactions, the academic credibility of a country stands shaken. The problem with NIRF lies in its vulnerability to partiality and manipulation, which ultimately undermines its integrity. NIRF rankings have often revealed a selective bias toward wealthy, Anglophone-oriented universities and institutions, while relying heavily on linear, metric-based quantitative evaluations rather than nuanced qualitative assessments. As a result, NIRF outcomes appear more like carefully choreographed performances than authentic reflections of academic excellence. The education strategists at the National Board of Accreditation must now decide what they truly want to pursue — the ultimate institutional quality validation, or genuine, long-term quality improvement.
