All research institutions under the umbrella of the DAE have been pursuing academic programme right from their inception.

The first director/vice-chancellor, Ravi Grover has written a brief history of the institute in an article published by him on the website of the Indian National Academy of Engineering.

[8] He has also written an article in Current Science (10 October 2019) explaining the rationale for setting up the institute.

The rankings are based on an institution's or country's share of articles published in the 82 prestigious scientific journals selected by an independent panel of experts and tracked by the Nature Index database.

According to Nature Index 2020, HBNI ranked at second position, behind Indian Institute of Science, among all academic institutions in India based on publications (count as well as share) during the period 1 March 2019 to 29 February 2020.