By Professor Koen Lamberts

A university’s reputation is often seen as its most valuable asset and, in an increasingly competitive and global higher education landscape, is more important than ever.

Institutions – and indeed nations – are vying for the brightest and best students, the most exceptional academics, and for funding to accelerate research and innovation that makes a real impact. It is why universities are placing more emphasis on their reputation and activities that build awareness, advocacy and support for their work.

However, building a strong reputation that drives growth and future success takes time. Some of the world’s oldest and most prestigious institutions have been doing this over centuries, and it requires immense focus.

This is because, to strengthen their reputation, universities need to make a long-term, sustained commitment to excellence in everything they do. They have to lead life-changing research that finds solutions to the greatest challenges facing our world today, provide an outstanding education that powers the next generation of leaders and problem-solvers, and forge strong partnerships that make a tangible difference with international collaborators, industry leaders and employers.

How people perceive this commitment to excellence really matters, and this can be seen in the influence of global rankings. A strong performance in major league tables, like the QS World University Rankings, enhances a university’s global standing and can strengthen its attractiveness to prospective students, staff, partners and collaborators. These rankings are, in part, influenced by the esteem a university holds among international academics and employers, which creates a powerful feedback loop: excellence drives success in rankings, which, in turn, enhances reputation and opens even greater opportunities to grow its impact.

Indian universities have placed a growing emphasis on enhancing their reputation and are already seeing success in their efforts, achieving their best-ever performance in the QS World University Rankings 2026. The fact that 54 Indian universities featured in this year’s rankings, including 12 Institutes of Technology, shows the approach is working. The National Education Policy 2020 put a focus on building global competitiveness and internationalisation through partnerships, and this is clearly making a real impact. In recent years, there have been an increasing number of UK universities announcing academic exchanges and collaborative programmes in education with Indian institutions. Others are opening their own campuses in the country, like the University of Bristol, which recently announced it had been granted approval by the Indian government to create a base in Mumbai.During my own visits to India in recent years, I have seen greater discussion between universities about how we can bring together perspectives from a range of academic disciplines to benefit communities across the world. For example, in Sheffield, our work with leading Indian institutions is focused on tackling some of the world’s most urgent challenges; from bringing clean energy to rural villages through electrification projects with IIT Madras and Visva Bharati, to advancing research in nuclear, renewable, and hydrogen energy with IIT Bombay and Indian industry.

Other universities across the UK are doing the same – the University of Leeds recently announced new research and student education alliances spanning medicine, engineering, biotechnology and social sciences, and the University of Manchester has launched new research partnerships with the Jawaharlal Nehru Centre for Advanced Scientific Research and the Manipal Academy of Higher Education.

Such partnerships need to be more than agreements on paper, but active, thriving partnerships that lead to tangible outcomes – and strengthening collaborations in research will help to drive further success in global rankings for India’s institutions.

As they seek to enhance their reputation, it is crucial that universities remain laser-focused on excellence and do not lose sight of their core mission. A strong reputation needs nurturing, and it is essential that the perception of an institution matches its reality. This means the story they tell to the world has to be a true reflection of a university’s commitment to action, collaboration and impact through delivering sustained quality research and innovation that solves global challenges and makes a difference to people’s lives. The focus needs to be on doing and showing – not simply telling.

This is the key to building a reputation that drives success and growth for universities around the world.

Professor Koen Lamberts is the President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sheffield, UK .