Quick Verdict
On Faculty and Academics, IIT Roorkee is the clear stronger institute. It ranks 6th among all IITs in the NIRF 2025 rankings against IIT Indore's 9th place (infinitylearn.com), scores higher on both the Teaching & Learning Resources and Research & Professional Practice parameters (nirfindia.org), and carries nearly triple the faculty headcount of IIT Indore (Wikipedia). IIT Indore's disadvantage traces largely to its youth: it belongs to the batch of IITs established in 2008-2009 that, as a group, are described as "still building permanent campuses and full faculty strength" (infinitylearn.com).
Snapshot
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) are India's federally-run network of premier engineering and technology institutes.
| Metric | IIT Roorkee | IIT Indore |
|---|---|---|
| Origin / converted to IIT status | Founded 1847; became IIT Roorkee in 2001 (Wikipedia) | Established as IIT in 2009, part of the 2008-2009 batch of eight new IITs (Wikipedia) |
| Faculty count | 585 (Wikipedia) | 204 (Wikipedia) |
| Student count | 9,735 (Wikipedia) | 2,323 (Wikipedia) |
| Faculty-to-student ratio (calculated from the counts above) | ~1:16.6 | ~1:11.4 |
| Total BTech seats | 1,208 (infinitylearn.com) | 370 (infinitylearn.com) |
| Institutional budget | ₹818.60 crore (~US$86 million) (Wikipedia) | Not disclosed in sourced data (Wikipedia) |
| NIRF 2025 rank among IITs | 6th, score 71.46 (infinitylearn.com) | 9th, score 59.88 (infinitylearn.com) |
| NIRF 2025 Overall national rank (all institute types) | 7th, score 71.73 (nirfindia.org) | 27th (tied), score 60.13 (nirfindia.org) |
| Teaching & Learning Resources (TLR) score | 73.06 (nirfindia.org) | 70.95 (nirfindia.org) |
| Research & Professional Practice (RPC) score | 72.05 (nirfindia.org) | 55.01 (nirfindia.org) |
Detailed Analysis
IIT Roorkee's roots go back to 1847, and the University of Roorkee was formally converted into IIT Roorkee in 2001 (Wikipedia). That long institutional history comes with scale: Roorkee runs on 585 faculty members teaching 9,735 students (Wikipedia), and offers around 1,208 BTech seats a year, more than three times Indore's undergraduate intake (infinitylearn.com). A larger, longer-established faculty base generally supports more specialized departments and more mature research groups, though the sourced material doesn't break this down department by department.
On the metrics that most directly measure "faculty and academics," rather than raw size, Roorkee also comes out ahead. In the 2025 NIRF rankings restricted to IITs, Roorkee placed 6th with a score of 71.46, against Indore's 9th place and 59.88 (infinitylearn.com). The separate NIRF "Overall" national ranking -- which places every type of institute in India (engineering colleges, universities, medical schools, and more) on one combined list -- shows the same gap: Roorkee ranks 7th nationally with a score of 71.73, built on a Teaching & Learning Resources (TLR) score of 73.06 and a Research & Professional Practice (RPC) score of 72.05 (nirfindia.org). Roorkee's two NIRF scores, 71.46 and 71.73, come from two differently-scoped source tables and differ only slightly -- most likely a rounding or table-version difference rather than a genuine disagreement.
IIT Indore, by contrast, is part of the second wave of IITs, established in 2009 alongside seven other new institutes set up between 2008 and 2009 -- IIT Gandhinagar, Jodhpur, Hyderabad, Patna, Bhubaneswar, Ropar, and Mandi (Wikipedia). General commentary on that newer cohort notes they are, as a group, "still building permanent campuses and full faculty strength" (infinitylearn.com), and Indore's own numbers fit that pattern: 204 faculty for 2,323 students (Wikipedia), well short of Roorkee's headcount, and a smaller 370-seat BTech intake (infinitylearn.com). Indore's institutional budget is listed as not available ("N/a") in the sourced data, so no budget comparison can be made confidently (Wikipedia).
Indore's NIRF numbers reflect the same pattern as its faculty scale: a 2025 IIT-specific score of 59.88 (9th among IITs) (infinitylearn.com), and on the national NIRF Overall table, a score of 60.13, tied for 27th place, with a Teaching & Learning Resources score of 70.95 but a notably weaker Research & Professional Practice score of 55.01 against Roorkee's 72.05 (nirfindia.org). That roughly 17-point RPC gap is the clearest sourced signal that Roorkee's faculty currently out-produce Indore's on research output specifically, even though the two institutes are much closer on teaching resources (73.06 vs. 70.95). Worth flagging on the system level: IIT faculty-to-student ratios generally run between 1:6 and 1:8, with the IIT Council's Standing Committee prescribing a department-wise floor of 1:9 (Wikipedia); neither Roorkee's calculated ratio (~1:16.6) nor Indore's (~1:11.4) meets that system-wide benchmark based on the raw institute-wide counts, though department-level ratios may differ from these headline figures.
Verdict
IIT Roorkee wins on Faculty and Academics: it leads on NIRF rank and score, on Research & Professional Practice by a wide margin, and on raw faculty headcount. IIT Indore is the runner-up, competitive on teaching resources but clearly behind on research output -- consistent with its status as a newer institute still building out faculty strength. The one condition under which a reader should pick Indore anyway: the calculated faculty-to-student ratio favors Indore (~1:11.4 vs. Roorkee's ~1:16.6), so a reader prioritizing a smaller, more faculty-dense environment on paper -- or a specific research area or advisor at Indore -- may reasonably choose it, since this comparison can't evaluate individual departments or faculty.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Which institute ranks higher in NIRF 2025?
IIT Roorkee -- 6th among IITs and 7th on the national Overall table, versus IIT Indore's 9th among IITs and 27th nationally (infinitylearn.com, nirfindia.org).
Q: How many faculty members does each institute have?
IIT Roorkee has 585 faculty; IIT Indore has 204 (Wikipedia).
Q: Which institute has a tighter faculty-to-student ratio?
Based on the raw counts, IIT Indore's ratio (~1:11.4) is tighter than IIT Roorkee's (~1:16.6), though neither meets the IIT system's general 1:6-1:8 benchmark (Wikipedia).
Q: Which institute scores better on research output specifically?
IIT Roorkee, with an NIRF Research & Professional Practice score of 72.05 versus IIT Indore's 55.01 (nirfindia.org).
Q: When did each institute become an IIT?
Roorkee in 2001 (its parent institution dates to 1847); Indore in 2009, as part of the 2008-2009 wave of new IITs (Wikipedia).
Q: Is IIT Indore still building up its faculty strength?
Sourced commentary on the 2008-2009 batch of IITs -- which includes Indore -- describes them as still building permanent campuses and full faculty strength (infinitylearn.com).
Q: Are the two institutes closer on teaching resources than on research?
Yes -- their NIRF Teaching & Learning Resources scores are close (73.06 for Roorkee vs. 70.95 for Indore), while their Research & Professional Practice scores diverge sharply (72.05 vs. 55.01) (nirfindia.org).
Q: What is IIT Indore's institutional budget?
Not available in sourced data -- Wikipedia lists it as "N/a" (Wikipedia).
Related
For the complete picture beyond Faculty and Academics -- placements, campus life, research opportunities, and more -- see the full IIT Roorkee vs IIT Indore comparison.