NIRF Engineering Colleges 2026: Biggest Movers in Last 2 years

India's technical education sector is witnessing rapid transformation, which makes review of some of the biggest gainers in NIRF engineering rankings during the last two years both timely and interesting. The established universities are still dominating the higher positions of the National Institutional Ranking Framework (NIRF); however, the small group of universities, colleges and technical schools were able to make considerable leaps through a number of important changes, which include developing advanced programmes, improving the graduation rates, strengthening cooperation with the industry, and conducting more research. As a result of the analysis of these institutions of higher education, one can find out what exactly they did in order to pass traditional competitors and rise in the national rankings.

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NIRF Engineering Colleges 2026: List of Colleges, NIRF Ranking 

According to the NIRF evaluation data from 2025, IIT Patna, BITS Pilani, and Symbiosis International show different trends against the five core parameters of evaluation. BITS showing the best performance in the region by attaining the highest composite engineering score among them of 67.02, which is followed by commendable scores in Teaching, Learning, and Resources (82.08) and graduation outcomes (81.04). IIT Patna is closely behind, having a composite score of 64.53 and similar good scores in graduation outcomes (78.4) along with better scores in outreach and inclusivity (63.95). Yet, Symbiosis International is lagging behind at the moment with a composite score of 56.55, which also indicates its lower scores in research and the area of professional practice (34.8) along with perception score.

NIRF Engineering 2025: College-Wise Key Metrics Comparison

According to data from the 2025 NIRF ranking, the three universities made notable strides forward with good rankings in India with BITS Pilani claiming the position of the best university in the country ranked at 11 points with the best engineering score (67.02 points) thanks to high performance in the area of Teaching, Learning & Resources (82.08 points) and Graduation Outcomes (81.04 points). IIT Patna has made a significant breakthrough and got to the 19th place with a composite score of 64.53 due to good rates regarding graduation outcomes (78.4 points) along with good performance in the sphere of outreach and inclusivity (63.95 points). Symbiosis International reached an impressive level with its ranking of the 46th position and composite score of 56.55 points based on good results of TLR (71.45 points) and OI (63.5 points) despite low performance in research and perception.

NIRF Engineering 2024: College-Wise Key Metrics Comparison

Researching the 2024 NIRF Rankings shows that IIT Patna and BITS Pilani did quite well in terms of eligibility. They ranked #34 and #20 nationally, but BITS Pilani performed slightly better, accounting for the overall score of 63.04 over IIT Patna's score of 58.4. BITS Pilani appeared as a leader in key areas of Teaching, Learning, and Resources (73.19), and Graduation Outcomes (79.48) because of its efficient academic structure and high student performance. On the other hand, Symbiosis International had no ranking (NR >100) in the engineering field that year, as its ratings were not given in the dataset.

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