Research output is one of the five parameters NIRF uses to rank every Indian Institute of Technology, including IIT Guwahati and IIT Indore — captured specifically in the "Research and Professional Practice" (RPC) component of the NIRF score. That sub-score, alongside each institute's own framing of its research culture, is the clearest sourced way to compare the two on this axis.
Quick Verdict
IIT Guwahati wins on Research Opportunities, backed by a meaningfully higher NIRF Research and Professional Practice score and an overall NIRF ranking that has stayed ahead of IIT Indore for years. IIT Indore is actively building a research culture of its own, including a formal undergraduate research scheme, but the comparative scoring data available still favors Guwahati.
Snapshot
| Metric | IIT Guwahati | IIT Indore |
|---|---|---|
| NIRF Research & Professional Practice (RPC) score, 2025 | 67.16 (NIRF) | 55.01 (NIRF) |
| NIRF Overall rank, 2025 | 11th (score 67.67) (NIRF) | 27th (score 60.13) (NIRF) |
| NIRF Engineering rank, 2023 | 7th (PW.live) | 14th (PW.live) |
| Faculty count | 539 (Wikipedia) | 204 (Wikipedia) |
| Established | 1994 (Wikipedia) | 2009 (Wikipedia) |
| Dedicated undergraduate research scheme | Not available in this research | PRIUS — Promotion of Research and Innovation for Undergraduate Students (IIT Indore R&D) |
We don't have sourced figures for publication counts, patents filed, or sponsored-project funding at either institute — IIT Indore's own research office lists categories like "Publications," "Projects," "Patents Filed," and "Granted Patents" as headings on its site, but no actual numbers were captured in this research (IIT Indore R&D).
Detailed Analysis
The clearest quantitative comparison available is NIRF's Research and Professional Practice (RPC) sub-score, one of the five components — alongside Teaching/Learning Resources, Graduation Outcomes, Outreach and Inclusivity, and Perception — that make up an institute's overall NIRF score (Infinitylearn). In the 2025 rankings, IIT Guwahati scored 67.16 on this component versus IIT Indore's 55.01 (NIRF) — a gap of roughly 12 points on a 100-point scale, one of the larger differentials between the two institutes on any single NIRF component. This tracks with Guwahati's larger faculty base (539 versus Indore's 204) (Wikipedia), since a bigger faculty pool typically supports a broader spread of active research groups and sponsored projects.
IIT Indore, for its part, describes a deliberate push toward interdisciplinary research: its research office states that the institute "envisages the convergence of traditional disciplines as the key to accomplish the previously unimaginable" and has been "promoting inter-disciplinary research programmes focusing on basic and applied research, technology development and innovation" (IIT Indore R&D). It also frames research as core to teaching itself, noting that "a key competency of IIT Indore is research driven academic programme as it forms a core component of the undergraduate and postgraduate teaching" (IIT Indore R&D). Concretely, this shows up in PRIUS — the Promotion of Research and Innovation for Undergraduate Students scheme — which the institute describes as the result of "consciously promulgating] the idea of involving undergraduate students in forefront research projects" ([IIT Indore R&D). IIT Indore also states that its research "has been recognized at both international and national level" (IIT Indore R&D), though no specific awards, rankings, or citation metrics were given to substantiate that claim in the material available.
We don't have an equivalent self-description of IIT Guwahati's research programs or an undergraduate research scheme name in this research set, so a direct programme-for-programme comparison isn't possible — the strongest available comparison remains the NIRF RPC score gap above, which favors Guwahati.
Verdict
Winner: IIT Guwahati, based on its clearly higher NIRF Research and Professional Practice score and larger faculty base. Runner-up: IIT Indore, worth choosing over Guwahati specifically if you're an undergraduate who wants structured early research exposure — its PRIUS scheme is explicitly designed to pull undergraduates into research projects, a specific offering we don't have a Guwahati equivalent for in this research.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which institute has a higher NIRF research score?
IIT Guwahati, with an RPC score of 67.16 versus IIT Indore's 55.01 in the 2025 NIRF rankings (NIRF).
Q: Does IIT Indore have an undergraduate research programme?
Yes — PRIUS (Promotion of Research and Innovation for Undergraduate Students), described as a formal scheme to involve undergraduates in research projects (IIT Indore R&D).
Q: How many faculty members support research at each institute?
IIT Guwahati has 539 faculty members versus IIT Indore's 204 (Wikipedia).
Q: Are publication or patent counts available for either institute?
No — neither institute's specific publication, patent, or project funding numbers were available in this research.
Q: Is IIT Indore's research recognized internationally?
IIT Indore's own research office states its research "has been recognized at both international and national level," though no specific supporting figures were provided (IIT Indore R&D).
Q: Does a bigger faculty automatically mean better research output?
Not necessarily, but it is one contributing factor, and it aligns with the direction of the NIRF RPC score gap seen here (Wikipedia, NIRF).
Related
For the complete picture beyond Research Opportunities -- placements, academics, campus life, and more -- see the full IIT Guwahati vs IIT Indore comparison.