We’ve had an understanding of what NIRF is about, in the previous article. To have quick glance, read “What is NIRF?“
Let us have a simple understanding of the parameters of NIRF in this article.
The parameters used in NIRF Rankings include the following:
Teaching, Learning, and Resources (TLR) — Weightage: 30%
- Student Strength including Doctoral Students (SS)
- Faculty-student ratio with emphasis on Permanent Faculty (FSR)
- A combined metric for Faculty with Ph.D. (or equivalent) and Experience (FQE)
- Financial Resources and their Utilization (FRU)
Research and Professional Practice (RP) — Weightage: 30%
- Combined Metrics for Research Publications (PU)
- Combined Metric for Quality of Publications (QP)
- IPR and Patents: Published and Granted (IPR)
- The Footprint of Projects and Professional Practices (FPPP)
From NIRF 2025, institutions face negative marking for retracted publications under this parameter. Self-citations are also excluded from citation metrics.
Graduation Outcomes (GO) — Weightage: 20%
- Metric For University Examinations (GUE)
- Metric For Number of Ph.D. Students Graduated (GPHD)
For discipline-specific categories such as Engineering and Management, this parameter also includes placement data and median salary metrics.
Outreach and Inclusivity (OI) — Weightage: 10%
- Percentage of Students from Other States/Countries (Region Diversity RD)
- Percentage of Women (Women Diversity WD)
- Economically and Socially Challenged Students (ESCS)
- Facilities for Physically Challenged Students (PCS)
- Perception (PR) Ranking
Perception (PR) — Weightage: 10%
- Academic Peer and Employers (PR)
Overall (Overall Score)
- This parameter considers the cumulative performance of the institution across all the above categories to arrive at an overall score.
It is important to note that while the five parameters remain consistent, sub-parameters and metrics are refined from year to year. NIRF rankings are intended to provide a comprehensive assessment of Higher Education Institutions in India — covering teaching quality, research output, graduate employability, and inclusivity. Institutions can use these rankings to benchmark their performance and work towards improvement in different areas.
