India will be the world’s second best represented nation in the 2026 World University Rankings, published in October: First the US with 171 universities, two India with 128, three Japan with 115, and the UK with 109 universities.

Business Desk Mumbai

The vision of the National Education Policy 2020 is rapidly becoming a reality, and India is poised to break new records to become the second-best represented country in the world, behind the United States, in the 2026 edition of the Times Higher Education ranking (THE), a senior Times Higher Education official has said.

“In the 2026 edition of the world rankings, to be published at the World Academic Summit in October this year, India will break new records to become the second-best-represented nation in the world, behind only the US,” Phil Baty, chief global affairs officer at Times Higher Education, said. India will be the world’s 2nd best represented nation in the 2026 World University Rankings, published in October: First the US with 171 universities, two India with 128, three Japan with 115, and the UK with 109 universities.

“In 2019, the year before NEP 2020, India had a respectable 49 universities in the rankings—a share of around 4% of all ranked universities. In the 2026 edition, India's representation will have almost tripled, to 128 ranked universities, representing almost six percent of all ranked universities,” he added.

He said the achievement reflects a nationwide commitment from Indian universities to collect better data, to step forward and subject themselves to global data benchmarking, to put themselves on the world stage alongside the top research universities worldwide, and to be a visible and active part of the global academic community, where research collaboration and talent exchange can help them to thrive further.

The expert said that it is not just in representation where India is showing exceptional progress, but there are improvements in quality too.

He said India’s National Education Policy of 2020 was “so pioneering and bold" that many said at its launch five years ago that it was simply too ambitious to succeed.

“One commentator wrote in Times Higher Education at the time that the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi was inspiring, and the planned reforms were commendable; 'however, whether any of this comes to pass remains unclear... it is far from a given that the document will even be implemented.' But exactly five years since the NEP 2020 was formally launched, on July 29, 2020, there is a growing body of independent evidence that despite the dramatic disruption of the Covid-19 pandemic, the bold vision is rapidly becoming a reality,” he said.

“Certainly, regarding ambitions to improve higher education quality and to finally embrace the full internationalisation of Indian higher education, Times Higher Education's data is clear: the plans are working,” he added.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings assess globally-facing research-intensive universities across 18 rigorous performance metrics, focused on excellence in teaching, research, international outlook, and vital knowledge transfer between universities and industry. He said India is improving its “research quality” ranking performance.

Baty said the data is clear that India's universities are increasingly rubbing shoulders with the world's global research elite.

“But based on an additional, very different set of performance metrics based on their social and economic impact, India's universities are also starting to really shine.” The latest results were published at the Global Sustainable Development Congress last month, and India was a world leader. In the overall Impact ranking, India had eight world top-200 ranked universities, and across a range of vital individual SDGs, it has a smattering of world top-ten universities.