After IITs, BITS Pilani Announces Withdrawal from Times Higher Education World University Rankings

The older IITs, including IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee have already stopped participating in THE Rankings.

After older Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani (BITS Pilani) has decided to withdraw from participation in Times Higher Education World University Rankings. Older IITs, which include  names like IIT Delhi, IIT Mumbai, IIT Madras, IIT Kanpur, IIT Kharagpur, IIT Roorkee have already stopped participating in THE Rankings, citing transparency issues in its ranking process.

As per a statement issued by BITS Pilani, decision follows a comprehensive institutional review and reflects BITS Pilani’s commitment to transparency, methodological robustness and verifiable benchmarking in higher education evaluation.

“Accordingly, institution will cease sharing the institutional and subject-level data required for inclusion in THE rankings from this cycle onward. As a result, BITS Pilani will not feature in forthcoming editions of Times Higher Education rankings including World University Rankings, Asia University Rankings and the Rankings by Subject,’ reads a statement by BITS Pilani.

It has stated that BITS Pilani believes global rankings can be useful as one of many benchmarking tools. At the same time, the Institute believes that evaluation frameworks must be credible, explainable, and independently verifiable given their expanding influence on student choice, academic partnerships, funding priorities and public trust.

Several leading Indian institutions, including IITs have earlier opted out of THE rankings in pursuit of stronger standards of transparency and institutional confidence in ranking processes. BITS Pilani statement further states: "It aligns with broader principle that measurement systems must meet standards expected of academic governance."