New Delhi: The country’s top 19 institutions—18 IITs and IISc Bengaluru—account for 28.70 percent of India’s research publications and 30.84 percent of citations, highlighting a growing concentration of quality research among the highest-ranked institutes.
The National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) 2025 report, released Thursday by the Union Ministry of Education, highlights that the top-ranked institutions not only produce more patents per institution but also account for a disproportionately large share of the total patent output across several categories.
According to the report, the distribution of publications, citations, and highly cited publications is analysed across eight categories of institutions—Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institute of Science (IISc), NITs, other Centrally Funded Technical Institutions (CFTIs), central universities, colleges, deemed-to-be universities, state private universities and state public universities.
IITs and IISc lead in research output and academic influence, with 19 institutions contributing 28.70 percent of total publications and receiving 30.84 percent of total citations. They are followed by deemed-to-be universities, where 22 institutions account for 23.10 percent of publications and 20.62 percent of citations.
Central universities contribute 9.29 percent of the total publications and receive 9.13 percent of total citations. In contrast, colleges contribute only 0.6 percent of the total publications and receive 0.99 percent of total citations.
“Across all categories, the data reinforces the central role of top-ranked institutions in driving the nation’s high-impact research output, while the remaining institutions, though large in number, contribute a significantly smaller share of highly cited work,” the report stated.
Experts say that the uneven distribution is mainly due to differences in resources and quality of faculty members and students among institutions. “The highly ranked institutions have the country’s best research faculty and students. The entire ecosystem creates a significant advantage. Additionally, younger institutes take time to catch up—even the newer IITs are progressing at their own pace,” an IIT director told ThePrint, requesting anonymity.
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Institutions with ‘no research publications’
The NIRF categorises participating institutions into 17 categories such as Overall, University, Engineering, College, Management, Pharmacy, Law, Medical, Architecture, Dental, Research Institutions and others.
The report highlights a significant number and percentage of institutions with zero publications. The management category shows the most concerning trend, with 58.31 percent of institutions (530 out of 909) reporting no research publications, indicating a widespread lack of research engagement. Colleges also exhibit high research inactivity, with 573 out of 1,821 (31.47%) having no publications, reflecting their just teaching-focused orientation.
In the Overall category, across all disciplines, 136 out of 1,757 institutions (7.74percent) did not contribute any research publications.
“These figures highlight the uneven research culture across disciplines and point to the urgent need for capacity building and research incentives, especially in management institutions and colleges, to foster a more balanced and inclusive research ecosystem in the country,” the report states.
Uneven patent distribution
The report reveals a striking disparity in patent output between top-ranked institutions and others across various fields.
In the ‘Overall and Engineering’ categories, the top 100 institutions account for 16,351 and 17,330 patents respectively, averaging 164 and 173 patents per institution. In contrast, the remaining institutions contribute a larger share of total patents—70 percent in Overall and 65 percent in Engineering—but with a much lower average of just 23 patents per institution.
Among universities, the top 100 dominate patent production by contributing 60 percent of total patents, with an average of 195 patents per institution, compared to only 33 from the remaining institutions.
The pharmacy sector reflects a similar pattern, where the top 100 institutions produce 60 percent of patents, averaging 28 patents each, while the rest publish just four patents on average.
“These figures highlight a consistent pattern where the top-ranked institutions not only produce more patents per institution but, in several categories, also command a disproportionately large share of total patent output,” the report stated.
Hon'ble Union Minister of Education, Shri @dpradhanbjp, today released the India Rankings 2025, which implements the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF) drafted for this purpose by the Ministry of Education in 2015. Speaking on the occasion Shri Pradhan said that the… pic.twitter.com/GphWgrknZC
— Ministry of Education (@EduMinOfIndia) September 4, 2025
Concentration of faculty with PhDs
The report observed that faculty with doctoral qualification is concentrated in top 100 institutions, while remaining institutions have fewer faculty with doctoral degrees.
It states that faculty with Ph.D. in 100 top-ranked institutions vary from minimum of 64.24 percent in case of colleges to the maximum of 94.37 percent in case of management institutions.
Whereas, faculty with Ph.D in remaining institutions vary from minimum of 30.74 percent in case of pharmacy Institutions to the maximum of 69.31 percent in case of universities.
The report highlights that in the top 100 institutions, the average number of faculty varies significantly across disciplines. For example, the average faculty strength is as low as 37 in pharmacy and 53 in management institutes, while it goes up to 718 in institutions under the Overall Category and 496 in Universities.
This indicates a strong faculty base in top-tier institutions, especially in broad or research-intensive categories.
In contrast, the remaining institutions show lower faculty strength overall. Here, the average number of faculty ranges from just 16 in management and 28 in pharmacy, to a maximum of 557 in research institutions and 329 in universities. The data underscores a considerable gap in faculty resources between top-ranked and other institutions, which may impact the quality of education and research output.
“This is a serious handicap since mentorship received during the doctoral training as Teaching Assistant can play a vital role in preparing the faculty for a teaching career in higher education,” the report stated.
(Edited by Ajeet Tiwari)
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