UGC to Award 10 PhD Excellence Citations Annually from 2024

The University Grants Commission (UGC) intends to recognize "high quality PhD work among young research scholars" by bestowing 10 "PhD Excellence Citations" annually.

Commencing in the upcoming year, UGC Chairman M Jagadesh Kumar said the citations will honor "outstanding doctoral research." The sciences, including the medical and agricultural sciences; engineering and technology; social sciences, including education and humanities; Indian languages; commerce and management are the five fields in which theses will be given.

The following year's citation will be available to research researchers who received their PhD degrees through a convocation that took place between January 1 and December 31 of that year. The citation is available to PhD holders from public, private, central, and universities that are considered to be universities.

The UGC established rules for these citations at a meeting last week, and they will soon be made public in order to gather comment. Following the requirements, universities are allowed to nominate up to five theses annually, one for each of the five subjects. In order to choose two awardees from each of the five streams, the UGC will form five selection committees, one for each of the five streams. The screening committee at the university level will shortlist candidates.

Educational institutions will have to take into account factors such as the thesis's originality, approach, structure and clarity, impact, defense, and addition to the field's body of knowledge. University submissions will be accepted by the UGC through an application portal in January, and the winners will probably get their citations on September 5 of each year.

The UGC claims that their analysis of PhDs conferred between 2011 and 2018 provided insights into the requirements for citations. Science accounted for 30% of all PhDs conferred during this time, with engineering and technology coming in second with 26%, social sciences with 12%, Indian languages with 6%, management with 6%, and medical sciences and education with 5% each. According to UGC data, the number of PhD admissions increased from 77,798 in 2010–11 to 1,61,412 in 2017–18.