India’s absence from the top ranks of global university standings highlights systemic failures in its higher education system, as Asian institutions continue to excel across disciplines.
The Times Higher Education (THE) Subject Rankings 2026 have revealed a troubling reality for India’s higher education landscape. While universities in China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea consistently dominate the global top-100 lists across various disciplines, India has made a minimal showing, appearing only once in the entire subject ranking table.
The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru is the sole representative from India, ranking 96th in Computer Science. In stark contrast, numerous Asian countries boast dozens of universities that consistently rank highly in fields such as STEM, humanities, business, law, medicine, and social sciences.
This situation is not merely a comparison with elite institutions like Harvard, Oxford, or MIT—universities with centuries of history and substantial endowments. Rather, it is a comparison within Asia itself, and the differences are striking.
The key takeaway from THE 2026 rankings is both uncomfortable and unavoidable: India is falling behind not due to a lack of talent, but because of systemic failures within its educational framework.
While some may argue that India performs reasonably well in technical fields, the rankings indicate that Asia’s success is broad-based and not limited to niche areas. For instance, in Computer Science, universities from China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea dominate the global top 50. In Engineering, over 30 Asian universities are ranked among the top 100. Chinese institutions are also prominent in Business and Economics, appearing in the global top 10, while Hong Kong and China host internationally recognized programs in Law and Social Sciences. Additionally, China and Hong Kong lead in Education Studies, and Japan and China significantly outperform India in Psychology and Health Sciences. In the Arts and Humanities, Asian universities are now rivaling Western research output.
In contrast, India remains largely absent across these disciplines. This is not a failure of intellectual capability; it is a failure of institutional design, research funding strategy, faculty policies, and governance.
Several factors contribute to the success of Asian universities, which India has yet to adopt effectively. First, research is treated as a core mission rather than an afterthought. Top Asian universities prioritize research output as the backbone of their academic credibility. Faculty promotions and career advancement are closely tied to publications in high-impact journals, citation performance, international research collaborations, and competitive research grants. While teaching is important, research productivity carries significant institutional weight.
In India, however, research often feels secondary, underfunded, and constrained by bureaucracy, with insufficient incentives for faculty. As one ranking analyst noted, “In Asian systems, research defines prestige. In India, it is often treated as optional.”
Another critical factor is funding. Countries like China and Singapore follow a deliberate concentration strategy, investing heavily in a select few institutions such as Tsinghua University, Peking University, and the National University of Singapore. This approach allows them to build a few global leaders rather than spreading limited resources across hundreds of universities, which has resulted in widespread mediocrity and few globally competitive institutions in India.
Furthermore, Asian universities actively recruit international faculty, creating diverse academic rosters that include professors with PhDs from top global universities and joint international appointments. In contrast, India faces challenges such as rigid salary caps, slow hiring processes, visa and immigration hurdles, and heavy administrative control, which hinder its ability to attract global talent.
Industry integration is another area where Asian universities excel. Institutions such as KAIST, POSTECH, NTU, and Tsinghua have deep ties with industry, with companies funding research labs, sponsoring faculty chairs, driving patent pipelines, and supporting innovation hubs. These partnerships convert research into real-world applications, while in India, industry collaborations often remain superficial, limited to guest lectures and paper agreements.
Moreover, Asian governments utilize global rankings as strategic tools to diagnose and improve their higher education systems. When performance drops, they redirect funding, change leadership, and restructure research strategies. In contrast, India often dismisses rankings as biased, celebrates selective successes, and avoids systemic reform, which does not foster the development of world-class universities.
The paradox of the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) further illustrates this issue. Indian students excel in global competitions, lead research teams abroad, and dominate Silicon Valley and other global tech firms. However, Indian universities do not reflect this excellence. The reason lies in India’s tendency to export talent rather than anchor it domestically. In contrast, countries like China and Singapore actively work to reverse brain drain by attracting global PhD talent and retaining international faculty.
The presence of IISc Bengaluru in the global top 100 highlights its strong research culture, academic autonomy, stable funding, international collaboration, and institutional discipline. However, one university cannot uphold a country’s global academic reputation. The pressing question is not “Why did IISc succeed?” but rather “Why did no other Indian institution follow?”
India can learn valuable lessons from Asia without merely replicating Western models. The focus should be on prioritizing depth over scale, rewarding research over seniority, treating universities as national strategic assets, reducing bureaucratic micromanagement, and establishing intentional, long-term academic policies.
While China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea are not without their flaws, they have adopted deliberate strategies that have propelled their universities to the forefront of global rankings. In contrast, India’s higher education system remains reactive, fragmented, and politically constrained.
The bottom line is clear: India’s absence from the global academic stage is a warning sign, not a mystery. While India does not need to surpass the U.S. or Europe immediately, there is no justification for its near invisibility within Asia. As Asian universities continue to excel across disciplines, India’s absence serves as a reflection of systemic neglect.
If India aspires to become a knowledge superpower rather than just a supplier of talent, systemic reform in higher education is no longer optional. The THE 2026 rankings have made this reality painfully clear, emphasizing the urgent need for change.
According to GlobalNetNews.