Birla Institute of Technology and Science (BITS) Pilani has secured the 9th position in the 2025 CS Rankings, a prestigious, metrics-based international ranking of top computer science departments.

This marks a significant improvement from its 10th rank in the combined 2023-24 years and 15th rank in 2024, placing BITS Pilani ahead of institutions like the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, several IITs, IMSc, ISI Kolkata, CMI India, DAIICT, and IIIT Bangalore.

CS Rankings, a US-based academic ranking system, evaluates computer science departments based on faculty publications in top-tier venues, using publicly available data from the Digital Bibliography & Library Project (DBLP).

“CS Ranking is a publication-based system where the position of an institution depends entirely on the quality of venues in which its faculty publish,” said Prof. V. Ramgopal Rao, Group Vice-Chancellor of BITS Pilani. The ranking emphasises high-quality conference publications, authorship weighting, and subfield classifications, ensuring a transparent and data-driven evaluation.

Institutional excellence and recognition

BITS Pilani, one of India’s first six ‘Institutions of Eminence,’ is the only private university selected by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) to establish a Technology Innovation Hub with a Rs 125 crore grant.

Role of APPCAIR in driving AI research

The Anuradha and Prashanth Palakurthi Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research (APPCAIR), established with a $1 million donation from BITS alumni, has been pivotal in elevating the Computer Science Department’s ranking. Inaugurated on February 17, 2020, APPCAIR focuses on cutting-edge areas like Generative AI, Machine Learning, Computer Vision, and Natural Language Processing.

CS rankings: Key features

CS Rankings evaluates research output based on:

- Metrics-based approach: Ranks institutions worldwide based on faculty publications in CORE A* conferences and journals.

- Data source: Uses DBLP for transparent, verifiable data, with no option for data submission.

- Weightage: Emphasises top-tier conference publications and allocates credit based on the percentage of institutional contribution per publication.

- Domains evaluated: Includes publication count, conference quality, subfield classification, authorship weighting, time window, and institution aggregation.