Baishali Mukherjee

In recent years, the number of researchers in the country’s colleges and universities has significantly increased. In this context, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has taken new steps to encourage students’ interest in research in various fields. Through a recent notification, they have announced that young researchers will be awarded for exemplary research in various fields. They will be honored with awards for excellence.

UGC’s new initiative, called the “PhD Excellence Citation” will be launched from the next academic session 2025-26. The commission has entrusted various universities across the country with the responsibility of selecting the best researchers. For this, “theses” or research papers in fields such as Science, Engineering and Technology, Social Sciences, Indian Languages or Regional Languages, Commerce, and Management will be thoroughly reviewed.

Researchers from state, central, private, and “deemed” universities who have already successfully submitted and defended their theses will be eligible to apply for this award. The application process will begin on January 1st next year and will continue until March 31st.

The UGC‘s new initiative to increase students’ interest in resetg8arch has been welcomed by the college faculties all over India who consider this to be an innovative initiative to encourage researchers. However, some are apprehensive that the guidelines do not clearly specify the criteria on which the quality of a thesis will be judged to determine the recipient of this excellence award in each field.

This has also raised concerns about whether the initiative will be used for political interests or if it could lead to favoritism. Partha Pratim Roy, the General Secretary of the Jadavpur University Teachers’ Association (JUTA), said, “It is essential to specify the criteria on which the best research papers in different fields will be selected. Otherwise, it could lead to controversies similar to those surrounding the NIRF rankings or the rankings by NAAC.”

According to the UGC’s notification, the selection process for the Excellence Award will be completed in two stages. In the first stage, universities will form screening committees to select researchers for various research topics in five different fields. In this process, in addition to the criteria set by the UGC, universities will also have the flexibility to establish their own standards for selection.

In the next stage, the UGC will form five separate selection committees for the five fields. After this, two researchers from each field will be selected for the Excellence Award. Universities will need to submit all the details of the researchers they have selected by August 1st. On September 5th, Teacher’s Day, the top researchers will be awarded the Excellence Award.

In recent years, the number of students enrolling for PhD programs in various educational institutions across the country has steadily increased. According to the commission’s data, the number of PhD students was 77,798 in 2010-11, which rose to 1,61,412 in 2017-18. However, in proportion to this increase, the amount of honorariums or fellowships for researchers has not been raised. In fact, several grants and fellowships have been discontinued, leading to occasional frustration among researchers.

Some are also of the opinion that the initiative fails to address the key issues faced by researchers all over the country and the commission should prioritize improving the infrastructure necessary for research and also ensuring better honorariums for the scholars. Many are also unhappy that the budgetary announcement of allocating 6 percent of the funds in the education sector to implement the New education Policy does not seem to be reflected in reality. Instead of organizing an award ceremony, they suggest that the commission start taking urgent steps to strongly encourage students in the field of research.

Also read: UGC plans to allow undergrad degrees to be finished early