According to Times Higher Education's Chief Global Affairs Officer Phil Baty, India is on track to break new records and become the world's second-best represented nation, trailing only the United States, in the 2026 edition of the rankings.
Baty made these comments in a statement marking the fifth anniversary of the new National Education Policy (NEP) 2020.
He said that the rankings report, which will be published on September 8 this year, indicates 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," he added, Hindustan Times reports.
The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings examine colleges' social and economic impact in accordance with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs).
Various parameters such as university teaching, research, community engagement, and resource stewardship are evaluated using hundreds of measures based on all 17 UN SDGs.
Baty highlighted that India's National Education Policy of 2020 was so bold that many critics believed it was simply too ambitious to succeed when it first launched five years ago.
“Exactly five years since the NEP 2020 was formally launched, there is a growing body of independent evidence that, despite the dramatic disruption of the COVID pandemic, the bold vision is rapidly becoming a reality,” he said.
He added that the data of the Times Higher Education is only further proof that the NEP 2020 has succeeded in realising this ambition of “improving higher education quality and finally embracing the full internationalisation of Indian higher education.”
In 2019, the year preceding the implementation of NEP 2020, India had 49 institutions in the rankings, accounting for around 4 per cent of all ranked universities. In the 2026 edition, India's presence will nearly quadruple to 128 rated universities, accounting for over 6 per cent of all ranked universities.
"This remarkable achievement reflects a nation-wide 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 most importantly to be a visible and active part of the global academic community, where research collaboration and talent exchange can help them to thrive further," Baty said.