UGC Regulations on PhD

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The University Grants Commission (UGC) has notified new guidelines on PhD (Doctor of Philosophy) degrees, including a set of changes in eligibility criteria, admission procedure and evaluation methods governing doctoral programmes in colleges and universities.

In Details

UGC has removed the mandatory requirement of publishing research papers in refereed journals or presenting at conferences
Part-time PhDs have been launched for working professionals, and there will be a relaxation of 5% marks in eligibility for admissions even for the new EWS category.

Key points of the UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedures for Award of PhD Degree) Regulations, 2022

The eligibility criteria for admissions have been changed. Anyone with a Bachelor’s programme degree with a minimum of 75% marks in aggregate or its equivalent grade will be eligible for doing a PhD.
- Graduates with conventional three-year Under Graduate (UG) degrees need to have completed two-year Master’s degrees.
The new Rules discontinue the M.Phil programme. The MPhil programme has been scrapped under the new National Education Policy, 2020
There are no major changes in the procedure for admissions.
Where the selection is done by entrance tests conducted by individual universities, a weightage of 70% will be given to performance in the written test and 30% to the interview.

University Grants Commission (UGC)

University Grants Commission is a statutory body under the University Grants Commission Act, of 1956.
UGC is charged with the task of coordinating and maintaining standards of higher education in India.
It provides recognition to universities and also allocates funds to universities and colleges.
UGC headquarters are in New Delhi, and it also has 6 regional centres.
All grants to universities and higher learning institutions are handled by the UGC.
In 2015-16, the Union government initiated a National Institutional Ranking Framework under UGC to rank all educational institutes.
UGC also conducts the National Eligibility Test (NET) for the appointments of teachers in colleges and universities.
M Jagadesh Kumar is the current chairman of the UGC.