IISc Bengaluru and Top IITs Lead India's Count on Global Scientists List

The Indian Institute of Science in Bengaluru leads all Indian institutions with 139 researchers on the 2026 Stanford-Elsevier World's Top 2% Scientists career-long list. IIT Delhi follows closely with 114 researchers, while IIT Kharagpur has 97, IIT Madras has 81, and IIT Bombay records 73.

Institutional Breakdown

A total of 3,898 researchers from 1,185 Indian institutions feature in this latest career-long edition. Additional major contributors include IIT Roorkee with 62 researchers and IIT Kanpur with 55. Jadavpur University counts 48 researchers, Banaras Hindu University has 44, and the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has 40. The University of Delhi includes 38, IIT Guwahati has 37, and both the Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research and Vellore Institute of Technology report 35 researchers each. Other notable entries are IIT BHU Varanasi with 33, AIIMS New Delhi with 30, and PGIMER Chandigarh with 29. The University of Hyderabad has 27, the Indian Statistical Institute in Kolkata has 24, and BITS Pilani also registers 24.

Evaluation Method

Developed by researchers at Stanford University and published by Elsevier, the database relies on Scopus citation records. It uses a composite citation score that factors in citations, the h-index, co-authorship, and authorship position across 22 broad scientific fields and 174 sub-fields. The publisher issues separate rosters for career-long impact and single-year performance to measure different aspects of academic output.

Context

Global scientist databases like this one help academic institutions measure how often their published research is read and cited by other experts around the world. These metrics provide a standard way to compare research impact across different countries and universities.