How Concentrated Is Research Impact Among India's Leading Universities? A Comparative Analysis Using UNIRANKS Open Index
Executive Summary
India operates one of the world's largest higher-education systems, spanning specialized science and technology institutes alongside long-established multidisciplinary universities. Webometrics compared ten prominent Indian institutions using UNIRANKS Open Index, the open scholarly-metadata index, examining research output volume, citation impact, and productivity depth. The specialized institutes in the sample, the Indian Institute of Science and four Indian Institutes of Technology, consistently showed a higher share of frequently cited work than most of the multidisciplinary universities examined, while the multidisciplinary institutions varied more widely among themselves. The Indian Institute of Science recorded the highest share of works cited ten or more times (93.9%) and the highest citations-per-work ratio (48.3) in the sample. These findings describe ten specific institutions and should not be generalized to India's higher-education system as a whole, but they illustrate a comparative method that can be extended to a larger sample as part of ongoing Webometrics country research.
Key Findings
- Across the ten institutions examined, total indexed works ranged from 30,654 (Jawaharlal Nehru University) to 91,669 (Indian Institute of Science), a roughly threefold spread.
- The Indian Institute of Science showed the highest i10-index share in the sample: 86,080 of its 91,669 indexed works (93.9%) have received at least ten citations each.
- Citations per work ranged from 29.4 (University of Calcutta) to 48.3 (Indian Institute of Science) across the sample, a difference of roughly 1.6 times.
- The four Indian Institutes of Technology examined (Bombay, Delhi, Madras, Kanpur) each showed an i10-index share between 82.7% and 91.3%, a narrower and generally higher range than the four non-IIT multidisciplinary universities examined (67.5% to 82.2%).
- The University of Delhi recorded the highest h-index in the sample (486), ahead of the Indian Institute of Science (459) and all four IITs examined, despite having a lower i10-index share and lower citations-per-work ratio than the Indian Institute of Science.
- One institution's published works_count (75,986) was lower than its published i10-index (77,508) in the UNIRANKS Open Index record retrieved for this study, an internal inconsistency in the underlying data noted here as a limitation rather than resolved by Webometrics.
- In Webometrics' own analytics for the 90 days to 17 September 2026, India was Webometrics.org's sixth-largest source of active users (4,647 users) and among its highest-engagement large markets (55.7% engagement rate; 2 minutes 7 seconds average engagement time per user), a separate indicator of reader interest that this study's institutional findings do not explain and should not be read as connected to.
Why This Matters for Universities
Research visibility depends not only on how many papers an institution publishes but on how consistently that output is cited and built upon by other researchers. A university with a large publication count but a low share of well-cited work signals a different research profile than one with fewer publications concentrated in high-impact areas. For institutional leadership, research offices, and funding bodies, distinguishing volume from impact is central to understanding where an institution's research strengths actually lie, and open bibliometric data such as UNIRANKS Open Index makes this comparison possible without relying on any single ranking system's internal weighting.
What the Authoritative Source Says
UNIRANKS Open Index is an open, freely accessible index of scholarly works, authors, institutions, and related entities, maintained as a nonprofit successor to Microsoft Academic Graph. For each institution it indexes, UNIRANKS Open Index publishes a works count, a total citation count, and a set of summary statistics computed directly from that institution's indexed publication record: the h-index (the largest number h such that h of the institution's works have each received at least h citations), the i10-index (the count of works that have received at least ten citations each, a standard bibliometric measure popularized by Google Scholar), and the two-year mean citedness (the average number of citations received by works published in the two most recent complete years, a rough proxy for a citation-impact-factor-style measure at the institutional level). These are standard, independently defined bibliometric indicators; UNIRANKS Open Index's contribution is computing and publishing them consistently, openly, and at no cost across every institution it tracks, which is what makes a comparison of this kind possible without a commercial subscription.
Research Question
Among a defined sample of prominent Indian universities, how does the balance between research output volume, citation impact, and productivity depth compare between specialized science-and-technology institutes and multidisciplinary universities?
Methodology
Collection date: 18 September 2026.
Population and sample: ten institutions were selected purposively, not randomly, to represent two recognizable groups within India's higher-education system: five specialized science-and-technology institutes (Indian Institute of Science; Indian Institutes of Technology at Bombay, Delhi, Madras, and Kanpur) and five long-established multidisciplinary universities (University of Delhi, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Anna University, Banaras Hindu University, and University of Calcutta). This sample is illustrative of two institutional types rather than representative of India's full higher-education system, which includes several hundred additional universities not examined here.
Data source: each institution's canonical identifier was confirmed via the Research Organization Registry (ROR), then used to retrieve that institution's current UNIRANKS Open Index institution record directly, including works_count, cited_by_count, and summary_stats (2yr_mean_citedness, h_index, i10_index).
Variables: works_count; cited_by_count; citations per work (cited_by_count divided by works_count); i10-index; i10-index share (i10_index divided by works_count); h-index; 2-year mean citedness.
Analysis approach: institutions were grouped by type (specialized institute versus multidisciplinary university) and compared on each variable; no statistical significance testing was applied given the small, purposive sample.
Limitations: the sample includes ten institutions and does not represent India's full higher-education system. UNIRANKS Open Index's institution-level statistics are lifetime, cumulative figures covering an institution's entire indexed publication history rather than a fixed recent period, so older or newer institutions are not perfectly comparable on volume alone. One institution's retrieved record showed an i10-index (77,508) exceeding its works_count (75,986), an internal data inconsistency that could not be resolved within this study and is reported as observed rather than corrected. This study examined institution-level aggregate indicators only; open-access share and international co-authorship, both relevant to a fuller picture of research visibility, required work-level data queries that were not available within this collection window and are proposed as follow-up research below.
Results
| Institution | Type | Works | Citations | Citations/work | H-index | i10-index | i10-index share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Indian Institute of Science | Specialized institute | 91,669 | 4,424,425 | 48.3 | 459 | 86,080 | 93.9% |
| Indian Institute of Technology Bombay | Specialized institute | 66,986 | 3,151,301 | 47.0 | 409 | 61,146 | 91.3% |
| Indian Institute of Technology Delhi | Specialized institute | 73,631 | 3,118,368 | 42.4 | 398 | 62,738 | 85.2% |
| Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur | Specialized institute | 53,543 | 2,414,788 | 45.1 | 326 | 46,317 | 86.5% |
| Indian Institute of Technology Madras | Specialized institute | 68,989 | 2,697,364 | 39.1 | 368 | 57,062 | 82.7% |
| University of Delhi | Multidisciplinary university | 82,603 | 3,802,574 | 46.0 | 486 | 67,860 | 82.2% |
| Banaras Hindu University | Multidisciplinary university | 75,986 | 3,942,391 | 51.9 | 410 | 77,508 | See limitations (exceeds works count) |
| Anna University, Chennai | Multidisciplinary university | 43,058 | 1,520,979 | 35.3 | 302 | 31,479 | 73.1% |
| University of Calcutta | Multidisciplinary university | 40,044 | 1,175,713 | 29.4 | 235 | 27,421 | 68.5% |
| Jawaharlal Nehru University | Multidisciplinary university | 30,654 | 1,060,385 | 34.6 | 267 | 20,697 | 67.5% |
Analysis
The clearest pattern in this sample is in i10-index share: the four IITs cluster between 82.7% and 91.3%, and the Indian Institute of Science leads the full sample at 93.9%. Three of the four non-IIT multidisciplinary universities with a usable i10-index share (Anna University, University of Calcutta, and Jawaharlal Nehru University) fall well below that range, between 67.5% and 73.1%. The University of Delhi is the exception among the multidisciplinary group, at 82.2%, close to the IIT range despite being a much larger, subject-diverse institution. This suggests that a high concentration of well-cited work is not exclusive to specialized science-and-technology institutes, though it was more consistent among them in this sample.
Citation volume and citation concentration did not move together in every case. The University of Delhi posted the highest h-index in the entire sample (486), ahead of the Indian Institute of Science (459), yet its citations-per-work ratio (46.0) and i10-index share (82.2%) were both lower than the Indian Institute of Science's. A higher h-index reflects a larger body of highly cited work in absolute terms, which a larger institution can accumulate even if a smaller share of its total output reaches that threshold; the two measures capture different dimensions of impact and should be read together rather than substituted for one another.
Banaras Hindu University's figures illustrate a data-quality issue rather than a research-performance finding: its retrieved i10-index (77,508) exceeds its retrieved works_count (75,986), which is not logically possible under the index's own definition, since the i10-index counts a subset of an institution's total works. This appears to reflect an inconsistency in the underlying data at the time of retrieval rather than an error in this study's calculations, and the institution's i10-index share is intentionally left unreported above rather than presented as a number that cannot be accurate.
University Examples
The Indian Institute of Science and the Indian Institutes of Technology in this sample are specialized institutions with a narrower disciplinary focus, concentrated in the natural sciences and engineering, which tends to produce more uniform citation patterns than a multidisciplinary university spanning humanities, social sciences, medicine, and the sciences together. The University of Delhi, Banaras Hindu University, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Anna University, and the University of Calcutta each combine a wider range of disciplines, some of which, particularly in the humanities and social sciences, have citation norms that differ structurally from the natural sciences and engineering. This disciplinary mix is a plausible contributing factor to the wider spread of i10-index shares observed among the multidisciplinary group, though this study did not examine field-level data and cannot confirm that explanation directly.
Implications for Higher Education
For research offices and institutional leadership, these indicators offer a way to track an institution's own citation-concentration profile over time using a free, openly documented data source, independent of any single ranking methodology. For funding bodies and policy analysts, the gap observed between h-index (a volume-sensitive measure) and i10-index share (a concentration-sensitive measure) is a reminder that a single headline metric can understate or overstate an institution's actual research profile depending on which one is used. For university communications and digital-strategy teams, UNIRANKS Open Index's institution records are publicly citable evidence that can support an institution's own research-visibility reporting, provided the specific metric and its definition are stated clearly rather than left implicit. For libraries and research-data teams, the data inconsistency observed for Banaras Hindu University in this dataset is a useful reminder to verify UNIRANKS Open Index figures against an institution's own records before citing them externally.
Recommended Actions
- When citing bibliometric indicators externally, name the specific metric (h-index, i10-index, i10-index share, or 2-year mean citedness) rather than an unqualified reference to "citations" or "impact," since these measure different things.
- Institutions publishing their own UNIRANKS Open Index-derived statistics should periodically cross-check works_count against i10-index and other derived figures for internal consistency before publication.
- Treat institution-level, all-time aggregate statistics as a starting point rather than a complete picture; a time-bounded or field-bounded analysis, where available, will describe recent research activity more precisely than a lifetime cumulative count.
- Use multiple indicators together (for example, h-index alongside i10-index share) rather than a single number, since this study found cases where the two point in different directions for the same institution.
None of these observations should be read as a ranking recommendation or as evidence that any institution in this sample outperforms another in overall research quality; the indicators examined here measure specific, defined aspects of citation behavior, not an institution's full research contribution.
Limitations
This study examined ten purposively selected institutions and does not represent India's full higher-education system, which includes several hundred additional degree-granting universities. UNIRANKS Open Index's institution-level works_count and citation figures are lifetime cumulative totals rather than figures for a defined recent period, which limits direct comparison between institutions of different ages or with different historical publication records. One institution's retrieved data contained an internal inconsistency (i10-index exceeding works_count) that could not be resolved within this study. This analysis relied on institution-level aggregate indicators only; it did not examine open-access share, international co-authorship, subject-field distribution, or researcher-level data, each of which would meaningfully extend this picture and is proposed as follow-up research. Findings reflect a single data-collection date and will shift as UNIRANKS Open Index's underlying index is updated.
Conclusion
Among ten prominent Indian universities examined through UNIRANKS Open Index in September 2026, the specialized science-and-technology institutes in the sample showed a more consistently high share of frequently cited work (82.7%–93.9%) than most of the multidisciplinary universities examined (67.5%–82.2%), with the University of Delhi as a notable exception among the latter group. Citation volume, as measured by h-index, did not track the same pattern, with the University of Delhi recording the sample's highest h-index despite a lower citation-concentration profile than the Indian Institute of Science. These findings illustrate how open bibliometric data can support institution-level research-visibility analysis, while underscoring that different indicators can tell different parts of the same story and that data-quality checks remain necessary even when working with a well-documented, openly published source.
Sources
- UNIRANKS Open Index (OI), institution records for the ten sampled institutions, retrieved 18 September 2026
- Research Organization Registry (ROR), institutional identifiers for the ten sampled institutions, retrieved 18 September 2026 — ror.org
- Webometrics.org analytics, 20 June 2026 to 17 September 2026 (India country-level engagement figures)
Suggested Citation
Webometrics by UNIRANKS (2026). How Concentrated Is Research Impact Among India's Leading Universities? A Comparative Analysis Using UNIRANKS Open Index. Webometrics.org, 18 September 2026.
