Institutions of Eminence scheme(IES)

Overview

About IES

Institutions of Eminence is a regulatory status conferred on a university or institute, and the applicant is the institution itself. A student cannot file for it, and the scheme pays no student directly. What it hands a small set of campuses is a bundle of freedoms other Indian institutions do not have, over fees, faculty hiring, curriculum and foreign collaboration, in exchange for written commitments on rankings, accreditation and student support.

Two separate instruments create the status, one for each kind of applicant. The private-sector one is the UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) Regulations, 2017, issued on the 29th August, 2017 and carried in the Gazette of India, Extraordinary, Part III Section 4, dated August 30, 2017 (Gazette of India). The public-sector one is the UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017, and the IoE Secretariat dates both documents to 07.09.2017 (About Institutions of Eminence, UGC IoE Secretariat). Applications were opened in three categories at once: existing government institutions, existing private institutions upgrading themselves, and sponsoring organisations setting up entirely new institutions (UGC IoE Secretariat).

The twenty slots have never been filled. The Ministry of Education's own count, published in June 2025, is that 12 institutions, 8 public funded and 4 private, have been notified as Institutions of Eminence under the World Class Institutions Scheme (Strengthening India's Educational Landscape, Press Information Bureau). The IoE Secretariat publishes those twelve as two tables, each row carrying the date its notification was issued.

That last entry is not a typographical oddity. A private Institution of Eminence is barred from suffixing the word University to its name and may only carry the words Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University in parenthesis after it (Gazette of India), which is why the register spells the name out the way it does. For a student comparing campuses, the table settles one thing only: which institutions hold a particular set of permissions. It carries no seat quota, no fee concession and no admission route of its own.

Who runs it

Provider

At a glance

Key details

Calendar

Important dates

Nothing about the Institutions of Eminence timeline recurs each year; every addition to the register has arrived as its own government notification. The commitment was announced in the 2016 budget speech, the two founding documents followed in 2017, the last date for applications from the public sector was extended by UGC up to 22.02.2018, and 71 applications from the public sector had come in by early February that year (Improving Quality Education, Press Information Bureau).

The dates that matter afterwards are the notification dates on the Secretariat's list. The first three institutions were notified on 11.10.2018 and the most recent notification is dated 03.08.2022 (List of IoEs, UGC). Between those, the Ministry issued orders declaring five more public universities as Institutions of Eminence on 4th September 2019 (Steps taken to implement the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, Press Information Bureau). No date for a further round has been published.

Who can apply

Eligibility criteria

The eligibility test is written around institutions, and it splits by ownership rather than by need. For a government institution the gate is a ranking one: a place in the top fifty of its category in the latest National Institutional Ranking Framework available on the last date for applications, or in the edition immediately before it, with a place in the top five hundred of an internationally recognised framework such as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings, QS or Shanghai's Jiao Tong University serving as an alternative route in (UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017).

The private route tests the sponsor, not the campus. The applicant has to be an existing private deemed to be university, or a university set up under a State Legislative Assembly's law, or a completely new proposal; its sponsoring organisation has to be a not-for-profit society, a public trust or a company constituted under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013; and the members' collective net worth has to reach Rupees five thousand crore for a greenfield proposal or Rupees three thousand crore where an institution already exists (Gazette of India). The 2021 amendment rewrote that net-worth clause to say how the figure is measured: the average of the last three financial years (UGC (Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities) (Amendment) Regulations, 2021, Gazette of India).

A state private university carries an extra burden that has decided real cases. It must submit an undertaking that its State Government will withdraw its status under the state legislation, by invoking an exit clause or by passing fresh legislation, before it can become an Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University (Gazette of India). That is precisely the letter the Ministry sent to the governments of Uttar Pradesh and Haryana about Shiv Nadar University and O P Jindal Global University in September 2019 (Steps taken to implement the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, Press Information Bureau).

Interest was never the constraint. Against the twenty places on offer, the Ministry received 114 applications, 74 from the public sector and 40 from the private sector (Government declares 6 educational 'Institutions of Eminence', Press Information Bureau).

Who cannot apply

Exclusions

Clearing every published test entitles nobody to the status, because the places are capped and the queue has always been longer than the list. The Empowered Expert Committee's first report, in May 2018, recommended 8 public and 3 private institutions; on UGC's recommendation the Government approved 3 public and 3 private, invoking a principle of equal weightage to the two categories (Press Note, UGC IoE Secretariat, 7 December 2018).

By 2019 the Committee had put forward 15 institutions in each category, and UGC ranked each list down to ten by a different yardstick. The public list was ordered on the QS-2020 World Rankings with the QS-2019 India Rankings breaking ties; the private list was ordered on QS India or NIRF standing, with NIRF as the tie-breaker, and the governing principle in both was that no institution absent from every global and national rank would be recommended (20 institutions recommended for status of Institutions of Eminence, Press Information Bureau). A place on a recommendation list is therefore not the status, which is why several universities described in the press as Institutions of Eminence are nowhere on the UGC register.

The gap between a Letter of Intent and a notification is where most of those names sit. In September 2019 the Ministry issued Letters of Intent to five private universities, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Vellore Institute of Technology, Jamia Hamdard, Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology and Bharti Institute (Steps taken to implement the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, Press Information Bureau); none of them appears on the Secretariat's published list of notified institutions (List of IoEs, UGC). The 2021 amendment added the exit that explains part of that: where an institute surrenders its Letter of Intent at any time, its application is treated as withdrawn (Gazette of India).

Two state universities were held back for a reason that had nothing to do with academic merit. Jadavpur University and Anna University could be taken up only after their State Governments issued an official communication allocating their share of the funds, up to 50% (20 institutions recommended for status of Institutions of Eminence, Press Information Bureau). A state institution's path runs through its state treasury before it runs through UGC.

One structural bar bites after the status is granted rather than before it. An Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University must be a unitary institution and may not affiliate any other institution (Gazette of India), a rule the 2021 amendment restated so that a campus's own off-campus centres and off-shore campuses fall inside the unitary institution rather than outside it (Gazette of India). That closes the private route to any university built on an affiliating model.

Continuation

Renewal conditions

Nothing lapses on a date, so what matters here is the review cycle rather than a renewal form. An Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University is reviewed once in three years after its notification by the Empowered Expert Committee for adherence to its implementation plan, and that monitoring runs until the institution reaches the top one hundred of a world ranking of repute for two consecutive years or for fifteen years, whichever is earlier (Gazette of India). In between, the institution reports its own progress to the Committee every year, the Committee may require it to self-report and publicly display compliance information, and the annual review exercise is to be completed by June each year.

Who does the reviewing is set out in the same regulations. The Empowered Experts Committee is three to five eminent persons appointed for a period of three years, eligible for reappointment for further three-year terms (Gazette of India). The Committee named on the Secretariat's own archive page is the one notified on 20.02.2018 under the chairmanship of Sh. N. Gopalaswami, with Sh. Tarun Khanna, Dr. Pritam Singh and Dr. Renu Khator as members (Archives, UGC IoE Secretariat).

The status can be taken back, and the ladder of consequences is graded. Where an institution misses its goals at the end of the fifth or a later year and the Committee finds grave deviations from the implementation plan, the Ministry may withdraw any or all of the additional incentives, remove the Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University status and replace it with ordinary deemed to be university status under the 2016 regulations, remove the status and require the institution to affiliate to an existing State University, or stop admissions for a specified number of years (Gazette of India). For a public Institution of Eminence the corresponding provision is a reversion: removal of the status and a return to whatever the institution was before it, withdrawal of the incentives, and any penal provision available under the statute the institution was set up under (UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017).

What you get

Award & benefits

Money and autonomy are split by ownership, and this is the most misread part of the scheme. Each public institution selected as an Institution of Eminence is to be provided financial assistance of up to Rs 1,000 crore over a period of five years (Government declares 6 educational 'Institutions of Eminence', Press Information Bureau). The public-sector guidelines qualify that headline: the release is that amount or 50 to 75% of the requirement the institution projected in its own perspective and detailed plans, whichever is less, it may not be spent on buying land or taking land on lease, and each annual release turns on the institution hitting the financial and physical outcomes written into its implementation plan (UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017).

What is actually budgeted is a smaller and more useful number than the headline, and it sits in the Union expenditure budget under the scheme's own name. The World Class Institutions line in the Department of Higher Education's demands for grants records Rs 1,000 crore actually spent in 2024-2025, a budget estimate of Rs 475.12 crore for 2025-2026 that was revised up to Rs 900 crore, and Rs 900 crore again as the budget estimate for 2026-2027 (Notes on Demands for Grants, 2026-2027, Demand No. 26, Ministry of Education). That is the provision for the entire scheme in a year, and only the public institutions on the list can draw on it.

Private Institutions of Eminence receive none of it. The regulations state flatly that there shall be no funding by the Central Government either to existing private institutions declared Institutions of Eminence Deemed to be Universities or to newly established ones, though they leave them free to access government funds allocated for specific studies or projects they execute (Gazette of India). The Government's stated position when the lists were settled was the same: no financial support for the private institutions proposed as Institutions of Eminence, and more autonomy as a special category deemed university instead (20 institutions recommended for status of Institutions of Eminence, Press Information Bureau).

The autonomy is the part visible from outside the campus, and the public and private lists do not get identical versions of it. On the Ministry's own summary, an Institution of Eminence may admit additional foreign students up to a maximum of 30% of the strength of admitted domestic students, charge foreign students without any fee restriction, recruit faculty from outside India up to a limit of 25% of its faculty strength in the case of a public institution, hire industry personnel as faculty who lack the usual higher academic qualifications, and enter academic collaborations with foreign institutions in the global top 500 without government approval, alongside complete financial autonomy and exemption from UGC inspection (Steps taken to implement the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, Press Information Bureau).

One widely repeated figure is out of date. The original online-teaching allowance was capped at twenty percent of a programme, but the 2021 amendment substituted that clause with a general freedom to offer online courses as part of a programme, and required only that an institution say so where every course in a programme is offered online (Gazette of India). The same amendment opened two doors that did not exist in 2017: an Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University may start off-campus centres, capped at a maximum of 3 in 5 years and not more than 1 in one academic year, on an application to the Ministry by affidavit with a detailed project report; and it may start off-shore campuses with the Ministry's prior approval after no-objection certificates from the Ministry of External Affairs and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

• Financial Assistance would be provided to Government institutions up to ₹ 1000 crore additional funding from the government.
• The Institution would have the full freedom to mobilize resources from the industry or alumni or other donors and utilize it in accordance with its implementation plan without having to seek any permission from any authority.
• The lnstitutions of Eminence would be free to admit maximum 30% foreign students of the total admitted students.
• lnstitutions would be free to fix and charge fees from foreign students without restriction.
• The lnstitutions of Eminence would have the freedom to determine the domestic student fees,subject to the condition that credible programmes of scholarships and loans to ensure that the needy are able to pursue higher studies without any financial problems.
• The lnstitutions of Eminence shall have complete flexibility in fixing of cuniculum and syllabus, with no University Grant Commission(UGC) mandated curriculum structure.
• Academic collaborations with foreign higher educational institutions ranked in top 500 in global rankings would be exempt from government approvals.

What to prepare

Documents required

The heart of the file is a plan, not a certificate. Every application has two parts, a fifteen year strategic vision plan and a five year implementation plan, and the Empowered Expert Committee's appraisal is built on those two documents together with any other measure of demonstrated commitment (Improving Quality Education, Press Information Bureau). The public-sector guidelines add that the strategic plan must carry the quantified milestones and timelines for reaching world-class repute along with a SWOT analysis of where the institution stands now (UGC (Declaration of Government Educational Institutions as Institutions of Eminence) Guidelines, 2017).

A private or greenfield file has to prove the people and the money behind it as well as the plan. It names the first Chancellor, the first Vice-Chancellor and the core team who will build the institution; it supplies the sponsoring organisation's guiding documents, its memorandum of association or trust deed, showing that research and education is one of its main objectives; it carries an in-principle commitment from the concerned persons to make land available; and it lodges a bank guarantee for Rupees ten crore that is forfeited if the institution is not set up within the time given (Gazette of India).

Step by step

How to apply

There is no student-facing application at any stage, and the institutional one does not open on demand. UGC calls for applications by advertisement in print media and on the UGC and Ministry websites, and a minimum time of ninety days is allowed from the date of that advertisement (Gazette of India). A centrally controlled institution applies through its controlling Ministry or Department and a State Public University applies through its State Government, so no institution files with UGC directly.

Nobody outside the process can follow an IoE application while it is pending, and it is worth knowing that before going looking. The IoE portal carries only Institute and Admin logins, for applicants and for the Secretariat, and publishes no open tracker for a pending application (UGC IoE Secretariat). What it does publish, on its archive page, is the paperwork itself: the original advertisement, the proformas for public and for private applicants, and the affidavit proforma for an off-campus centre (Archives, UGC IoE Secretariat). For anyone outside the process, the published list of notified institutions is the only reliable record, and a name absent from it does not hold the status, whatever a prospectus says.

On the current window, the honest position is that nothing is open and nothing has been declared closed. The most recent notification on the Secretariat's list is dated 03.08.2022 (List of IoEs, UGC), and no fresh advertisement inviting applications has been posted on the portal or its archive since. An institution waiting for another round has to watch for that advertisement, because the ninety-day clock starts from its publication.

How winners are picked

Selection process

Selection runs through the Empowered Expert Committee, chaired when the applications were appraised by Shri N Gopalaswami (20 institutions recommended for status of Institutions of Eminence, Press Information Bureau). Its appraisal is a table exercise over the papers submitted, combined with multiple interactions with representatives of the sponsoring organisation and, where it chooses, a field visit; the applicants of the first round made their presentations between 2nd April, 2018 and 8th May, 2018 (Government declares 6 educational 'Institutions of Eminence', Press Information Bureau). The Committee then ranks the institutions for suitability and its recommendations travel to UGC and on to the Ministry within fifteen days (Gazette of India).

The private track adds a probation stage the public one does not have. The Ministry issues a Letter of Intent within two weeks of receiving the recommendations; the institution must indicate readiness to begin academic operations within three years of that letter, extendable by a maximum of six months on a reasoned application; the Committee then assesses readiness in thirty days; the strategic and implementation plans are converted into a Memorandum of Understanding; and the notification declaring the institution follows within thirty days of that signing (Gazette of India). A greenfield proposal gets the same three-year runway to establish and operationalise itself before the Committee will consider granting it the status (20 institutions recommended for status of Institutions of Eminence, Press Information Bureau). That sequence is why the dates in the table above are notification dates and not announcement dates.

Fine print

Terms & conditions

The commitments an Institution of Eminence takes on are specific enough to be audited. The faculty student ratio should be not less than 1:20 at the time of the notification declaring it an Institution of Eminence and should improve so as not to be less than 1:10 after five years of that date (About Institutions of Eminence, UGC IoE Secretariat). The 2021 amendment rewrote what counts towards that ratio, widening it to regular, adjunct, overseas, visiting, contractual, industry and tenure track faculty while requiring that 60 per cent of the faculty be appointed on a permanent or regular basis, and keeping part-time faculty out of the count entirely (Gazette of India).

Research output is written in as a rate rather than an aspiration. The institution should hold a record of research publications at the mean rate of at least one per faculty member each year in reputed peer-reviewed international journals, benchmarked against publications made by the top 100 global universities in those journals (About Institutions of Eminence, UGC IoE Secretariat). Scale is written in too: a multi-disciplinary institution is expected to reach a student enrolment of 10,000 in 15 years, with a lower figure permitted where the institution justifies it (Steps taken to implement the Institutions of Eminence (IoE) Scheme, Press Information Bureau). The ranking promise sitting on top of all of it is that the institution will come up in the top 500 of the world ranking in 10 years and in the top 100 eventually (Government declares 6 educational 'Institutions of Eminence', Press Information Bureau).

Accreditation and ranking carry their own deadline. Within five years of its notification an Institution of Eminence Deemed to be University has to obtain accreditation and get itself ranked both in the National Institutional Ranking Framework and in an international ranking index of repute, and an existing institution starts getting ranked from the year it receives its Letter of Intent (Gazette of India). Its accounts are audited every year by a Chartered Accountant and the report goes to UGC within nine months of the close of the financial year.

The student-facing conditions travel with the fee freedom, and they are the part of the scheme a family can actually hold an institution to. A private Institution of Eminence may fix its own fees and is exempt from fee regulations, but the fee has to be fixed transparently and upfront without hidden charges; capitation fee is prohibited and any instance is treated as a serious violation attracting penalty under the law; the institution has to create a credible and robust programme of financial assistance in the form of scholarships and loans so that a student admitted on merit is not turned away for lack of financing; and it has to appoint an Ombudsman, independent of the institution and its management, whose contact details are displayed on the campus, on the homepage of its website and in its prospectus (Gazette of India). Public Institutions of Eminence implement the reservation policy in admissions and recruitment in accordance with any Act of Parliament for the time being in force.

Get help

Contact

Queries go to the IoE Secretariat rather than to UGC's general help desks. The Secretariat sits at the University Grants Commission, Bahadur Shah Zafar Marg, New Delhi - 110002, and publishes 011-23604133 for general enquiries and 079-23268284 for technical enquiries, with email at ioe.secretariat@gmail.com (UGC IoE Secretariat). The Secretariat's contact page names the desks behind those numbers, a Deputy Secretary on 011-23604141 and a Section Officer on 011-23604506, each with a nic.in email address, and routes technical queries to the INFLIBNET Centre (IoE Secretariat contact details, UGC).

Source

Official links

Frequently asked questions

From the official scheme FAQ (myScheme)

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer

Scheme details are compiled from myScheme, the Government of India’s official scheme-discovery platform, and are reproduced without alteration. Amounts, deadlines and eligibility change between cycles, so always confirm on the official links above before applying. Expertie does not process applications or charge fees.

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