NIRF at 10: Can a Single Rank Measure the True Quality of a University?
Yesterday, our debate session hosted by The Hindu on NIRF and its decade-long journey once again brought a fundamental question to my mind: Can the true academic quality of a university really be reduced to a single number or rank? And if not, how much has this number changed the way Indian universities have been functioning over the past decade?
Launched in 2015, the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF), with its first rankings released in 2016, has today become an important reference point in India’s higher education system. In 2025, its tenth edition, a record 7,692 unique institutions submitted 14,163 applications across different categories and disciplines.
Today, NIRF is much more than a list. It has become an important reference for students and parents while choosing institutions, a measure of institutional reputation, and a national benchmark for comparing higher education institutions. That is perhaps its biggest achievement, and also its biggest challenge.
Beyond the rank, NIRF evaluates institutions across five broad parameters: Teaching, Learning and Resources; Research and Professional Practice; Graduation Outcomes; Outreach and Inclusivity; and Perception. In the overall category, these carry weightages of 30%, 30%, 20%, 10%, and 10%, respectively.
But this is where the larger question begins: Can a single score created by combining these very different dimensions really capture the complete picture of a university?
After all, a university is not just about how many research papers it publishes, how many citations it receives, or how it is perceived by its peers. It is also about the classroom environment, the laboratory experience, the mentoring relationship between teachers and students, and the overall academic experience a student receives during those crucial years.
This is where the debate around NIRF appears to take three different directions.
The first view is that the existing NIRF system should be retained but substantially improved. The second is that the very idea of reducing institutional quality to a single ranking is problematic and should be reconsidered. The third is that ranking can remain, but the way we measure institutional quality needs to evolve.
Instead of placing disproportionate emphasis on publications, citations, and institutional scale, greater attention should be given to teaching quality, actual learning outcomes, the social impact of research, and student experience.
The approaches may differ, but they converge on one important point: a rank cannot tell the whole story of a university.
When the Metrics Become the Mission
Perhaps the most serious aspect of this debate is the question of metrics versus mission.
Research and Professional Practice carries 30% weightage in the NIRF methodology. Research is therefore an important component, but it is not the entire basis of the ranking.
At the same time, research publications, citations, patents, and other research-related indicators naturally have significant influence on institutional performance.
This brings us to an uncomfortable question: Are institutions pursuing research primarily because it expands knowledge and creates impact, or because research output is visible in rankings?
When a metric becomes so important that institutions begin shaping their behaviour around it, Goodhart’s Law becomes relevant: when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.
The concern is not that research should be removed from the ranking. The real question is how we strike the right balance between the quantity of research and its quality, relevance, and impact.
Quantity, Quality and the Pressure to Publish
There are also concerns around the manipulation of research metrics, paper mills, multiple affiliations, and citation practices. Experts have questioned whether bibliometric indicators alone can adequately capture relevance, innovation, social impact, and the wider contributions of universities.
NIRF has also introduced mechanisms to improve data quality and address problematic research output, including negative marking for retracted publications and the use of third-party databases for publications and citations.
Which brings us back to the central question: Does the ranking measure the actual quality of institutions, or are institutions gradually changing their behaviour to achieve a better ranking?
But NIRF’s Achievement Cannot Be Ignored
Despite these criticisms, NIRF has undoubtedly brought an important change to Indian higher education. It created a common national framework through which institutions could be compared. It also encouraged institutions to organise and present their performance data within a defined framework, strengthening the culture of data and benchmarking in higher education.
Its reach has expanded considerably over the decade. As noted during the panel discussion, from 3,565 institutions participating in the first exercise, the number grew to 7,692 unique institutions submitting applications in 2025, with 14,163 applications across categories and disciplines.
Another important contribution is that institutions now have a common national reference point against which they can examine their performance and progress.
In that sense, NIRF has at least created a common language for discussing institutional performance.
Ten Years Later, What Should We Be Asking?
After a decade, perhaps the success of NIRF should no longer be judged simply by which institution occupies the first position or moves five places up or down.
The real questions are much bigger:
Has research grown only in terms of publications and citations, or has its real-world impact grown as well?
Has classroom teaching actually improved?
Are students receiving better mentoring?
Have learning outcomes improved?
Are graduates merely getting better placements, or are they leaving the institution with stronger skills and deeper knowledge?
And most importantly, are institutions becoming better universities because of NIRF, or are they simply becoming better at securing a better ranking?
Beyond the Ranking Table
Because the purpose of a ranking should not merely be to tell us which institution is above or below another.
Its larger purpose should be to encourage every institution to improve its teaching, research, student experience, and social impact.
Ultimately, the success of a university is not reflected only in its rank. It is reflected in the futures of the students it prepares.
Ten years on, this may be the real test for NIRF: has it merely changed the rankings of Indian universities, or has it helped change the actual quality of Indian higher education?
Perhaps it is time we stopped asking only where a university stands on the ranking table and started asking what has actually changed behind that number.
