The campus also saw international opportunities – for the Middle East, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore – offered by various firms in different cohorts.
In the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026, IIT-ISM Dhanbad and IIM Ahmedabad have emerged as the highest-ranked Indian institutions, reflecting strong gains in engineering and management disciplines.
The Indian School of Mines (IIT-ISM) Dhanbad and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM) Ahmedabad emerged as the top-ranked Indian institutions in the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2026 on Wednesday.
Read | IITs Bombay, Delhi, Madras lead globally as India records highest surge in QS Subject Rankings 2026
Releasing the rankings, global higher education analysts QS Quacquarelli Symonds observed that India has made “rapid strides” in engineering, especially in computer science. However, it said “the picture is not uniformly positive,” with Arts and Humanities remaining “a weak spot”.
It added that India’s top institutions are “still sitting well outside the global elite in disciplines such as medicine and the social sciences, where research output volumes and international faculty ratios have historically lagged.”
The highest rank secured by an Indian institution is 21. IIT-ISM Dhanbad ranked 21 in the ‘Engineering — mineral and mining’ subject, while IIM Ahmedabad ranked 21 in two subjects, business and management studies, and marketing. IIT-ISM Dhanbad was the highest-ranked Indian institution last year as well, ranking 20th in mineral and mining engineering.
As many as 99 Indian institutions feature in this year’s rankings, up from 79 last year. In terms of the number of institutions represented in the rankings, India stands fourth globally, after the US (228 institutions), China (158 institutions), and the UK (114 institutions).
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QS has pointed out that “the most dramatic concentration of improvement” among Indian institutions is in engineering.
All six Indian institutions in the top 100 in computer science have improved their rankings compared to last year. The top performer in computer science is IIT Bombay (ranked 44, up from 76 last year), followed by IIT Delhi (ranked 45, up from 64 last year), IIT Kanpur (ranked 65), IIT Kharagpur (ranked 67), IIT Madras (ranked 79), and Vellore Institute of Technology (ranked 86) is the only private institution in the top 100 in this category.
India saw 44 entries in the computer science and information systems category this year, up from 42 last year. According to QS, the US, the UK, Germany, and France saw fewer computer science entries in 2026, while India’s representation expanded.
In the broad subject area of ‘Arts and Humanities’, no Indian institution features in the top 100. The highest-ranked Indian institution is Delhi University at 231. Similarly, in ‘Life Sciences and Medicine’ as a broad subject area, no Indian institution ranks in the top 100, with the best performer being AIIMS Delhi (217). AIIMS ranked 105 in the ‘medicine’ category.
The rankings cover approximately 1,900 institutions across more than 100 countries.
