IISER Thiruvananthapuram (TVM) PhD Admission 2026 (Aug)
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Full details for IISER Thiruvananthapuram (TVM) PhD Admission 2026 (Aug).
Indian Institute of Science Education and Research Thiruvananthapuram invites applications for admission to the PhD Programmes for the academic session Varsha 2026 commencing in August 2026.
Vacancy
IISER TVM PhD offering Schools/Centres
- Schools of Biological Sciences
- Schools of Chemical Sciences
- Schools of Physical Sciences
- Schools of Mathematical Sciences
- Schools of Data Sciences
- Schools of Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences
- Centre of High-Performance Computing (CHPC)
Eligibility Criteria
General Eligibility Criteria
- 6.5 CGPA on a 10-point scale (or first-class equivalent) or first class in Master’s program in a relevant discipline as declared by the respective university for General/OBC-NCL candidates and a minimum of 50% marks (or a CGPA of 5.5 in the 10-point scale) for SC/ST and PwD candidates. (BE/BTech degree in relevant specialization is admissible for select areas of research in the School of Physics/ Data Sciences/ Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences(see Research Areas))
- The candidate must have qualified at least one of the following examinations: CSIR-JRF, UGC-JRF (Category-I or II or III) or GATE or other national-level examinations as specified in the document, with validity as on 01 August 2026. (see School specific Eligibility Criteria for other national-level examinations considered for the selection).
- BS-MS/MSc/Integrated MSc students from any of the IISERs/IITs/IISc with a CGPA of 8 or above on a 10-point scale are exempted from national level test eligibility related criteria.
- JRFs at IISER TVM, recruited under extramural projects, with a valid national-level qualification as specified in point 2.
Relaxation for reserved categories to the eligibility criteria will be applicable as per Government of India rules.
Subject Wise Eligibility Criteria
| SCHOOL | RELEVANT AREAS | ELIGIBILITY CRITERIA |
|---|---|---|
| Biological Sciences | Biological Sciences/ Chemical Sciences/ Physical Sciences/ Mathematics/ Bioinformatics/ Agricultural Sciences/Veterinary SciencesOR5 year Bachelor Degree in Medicine (e.g. MBBS, BDS)ORBE/BTech/Engineering areas closely related to the research areas in the School of Biology. |
OR
OR
* Depending on the number of applications, a cut-off based on marks/score maybe be imposed to shortlist these OR
|
| Chemical Sciences | Chemical Sciences |
OR
OR
|
| Physical Sciences | Physical Sciences/Material Science/Engineering areas closely related to the research areas of School of Physics, IISER TVM |
OR
OR
For the * marked research areas listed below BE/BTech candidates are eligible to apply. |
| Mathematical Sciences | Mathematics/Statistics/ Engineering/Relevant area of science |
OR
OR
|
| Data Sciences | Computer Science/ Data Science/Statistics/ Mathematics/Information Technology/ Electronics and Communication Engineering or Engineering areas closely related to the research areas of School of Data Science, IISER TVM. |
OR
OR
For the * marked research areas listed below BE/BTech candidates are eligible to apply. |
| Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences | MSc or MTech in Marine sciences/ Chemistry/ Physics/Biology/ Mathematics/ Geology/Applied Geology/ Earth Science/Atmospheric Science/ Meteorology/Climate Science/ Oceanography/ Water Resources/ Hydrology Ecology/Agriculture/ Environment Science
BE/BTech/Engineering areas closely related to the research areas of School of Earth, Environmental and |
OR
OR
For the * marked research areas listed below BE/BTech candidates are eligible to apply. |
| CHPC – Centre of High-Performance Computing | Research areas wise diffrent requirement |
OR
OR
|
Research Areas
Biological Sciences
- Biophysics and Biochemistry
- Cell and Molecular Biology
- Ecology & Evolution
- Genetics and Development
- Infection and Immunity
- Host-Pathogen Interaction
- Neurobiology
- Plant Biology
- Theoretical & Computational Biology
Chemical Sciences
- Asymmetric Total Synthesis and Catalysis; Natural Products and Medicinal Chemistry
- Atom-precise Metal Nanoclusters and Inorganic Materials
- Bioinorganic and Coordination Chemistry
- Biomaterials, Chiral Nanomaterials, Antimicrobial coatings, Nanomedicine
- d-block Organometallic Chemistry, Small Molecule Activation, Development of Molecular Catalysts for Hydrogenation and Cross-Coupling Reactions
- Development of New Synthetic Methods, Asymmetric Catalysis, and Cross-Coupling Reactions
- Electrocatalysis for Energy Conversion and Biomass Valorization
- Inorganic and Materials Chemistry; MOFs for gas storage and separations, Li and Na-ion Batteries & Supercapacitors
- Main Group Catalysis
- Medicinal chemistry, Organic synthesis, Computational drug discovery, Chemical biology
- NMR Spectroscopy and Biophysical chemistry
- Organic Chemistry, Mass spectrometry, Metabolic chemistry
- Organic Synthesis Enabled by Metal Catalysis, Photocatalysis and Molecular Editing
- Organic synthesis and cross-coupling reaction, Machine learning and AI in organic synthesis
- Photochemistry and Photophysics, Molecular Spectroscopy, Ultrafast Spectroscopy
- Radical Chemistry in Organic Synthesis
- Soft-Materials & Interfaces, Protein-film electrochemistry, Charge Transport in Bio/Molecular Systems
- Supramolecular Chemistry, DNA nanotechnology, Cancer therapy
- Supramolecular Chemistry, Molecular Switches and Machines, Host-guest Chemistry
- Supramolecular chemistry / Organic chemistry
- Synthesis of Macrocycles, Molecular and ion-sensors for optoelectronic applications
- Theoretical and Computational Chemistry
- Theoretical and Computational Physical Chemistry, Systems Chemistry, Biophysics, Soft Matter
- Theoretical Chemistry; Computational Materials Science
- Ultrafast Spectroscopy, Excited-State Structural Dynamics
Mathematical Sciences
- Algebra and Geometry: Low Dimensional Topology, Algebraic Geometry
- Applied and Computational Mathematics: Numerical Methods for PDEs, Computational Methods for PDEs, Scientific Computing, Financial Engineering, Mathematical Oncology, Data Science & Machine Learning, Computational Harmonic Analysis
- Analysis and Applied Analysis: Functional Analysis, Analysis of Partial Differential Equations (PDEs)
Data Sciences
- (*) Deep Image Segmentation, Space Applications (Segmentation, Object Detection), Lightweight Deep Learning Model, Deep Neural Network, Physics-inspired Neural Network, Real-time Applications
- Survival Analysis, Dependence modelling using Copula, Applied Statistics
- Design and analysis of Cluster Randomized Trials, Survival Analysis, Reliability Theory, Applied Statistics
- (*) Computer Vision, Deep Learning applications to Medical Imaging, Computational Imaging, Biomedical Data Science, Explainable AI, Spatial Data Science
- (*) Human Behavior Analysis (HBA), Emotion Recognition, Multimodal AI, Affective Computing, Human-Centered AI, AI for Mental Health, Computational Behavioral Neuroscience, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning, Computer Vision
- (*) Theoretical Computer Science: Algorithms and Complexity, Graph Theory and Combinatorics
- (*) AI-assisted B5G/6G V2X, Connected Autonomous Mobility, Deep Learning, Edge AI, IoT-based Precision Farming, Next Generation Intelligent Transportation System, Post Quantum Secure Networking
- (*) 3D Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, 4D Human-Object Interaction, 4D Mapping, 4D Reconstruction, Spatial LLM
- (*) Quantum Cryptography, Post-Quantum Cryptography, Applied Cryptography, Cloud Security, Blockchain Security
* BE/BTech candidates are eligible for selected areas marked with asterisk.
Physical Sciences
Experimental Physics
- (*) Super capacitors, Solid-state Lithium Batteries
- Quantum Magnetism
- Excitons in 2D materials, Quantum Emitters, Epsilon Near Zero Systems
- Superconductivity, Quantum materials, Energy materials
- Physics of semiconductor devices (solar cells, light emitting diodes, transistors, memory, bioelectronic) based on quantum/organic/perovskite/2D materials using various optical and electrical spectroscopy techniques
- Ultrafast Optical Spectroscopy of 2D nanomaterials
- Nonlinear optics, frequency combs, microwave photonics, Photonic quantum computing
- (*) Biomedical Instrumentation and Imaging; Development of Light Sheet Microscopy (LSM) or Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM) imaging system; Development of photoacoustic imaging (PAI) system – both microscopy and tomography
- (*) Engineered Quantum Materials and Device Physics
- (*) Advanced semiconductor devices for power / energy conversion
- (*) Quantum Materials (Topological materials, and Van der Waals heterostructures), Spintronics (Multiferroics)
- (*) Ultrafast molecular dynamics, Generation of attosecond pulse train
- (*) Quantum dot spin-qubits, 2D superconducting circuits
BE/BTech candidates are eligible for selected areas marked with *
Theoretical Physics
- Condensed Matter Theory: Strongly correlated electron systems, Neural quantum state (NQS) wave function for quantum many-body systems, Topological phases of matter.
- Nonlinear Dynamics and Complex Systems: Adaptive Networks
- Condensed Matter Theory: Quantum Materials, Magnetism and Spintronics
- Beyond Standard Model of Particle Physics, Effective Field Theory, Baryon Number Violation, Dark Matter
- Quantum Information Theory, Quantum Materials (Theory) and Quantum Limited Sensing and Metrology
- Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation and Analysis of Cosmological and Astrophysical Datasets
- High Energy Astrophysics (Computational Astrophysics in Gamma Ray Bursts)
- Beyond the Standard Model of Particle Physics, Collider Phenomenology
- Soft Matter, Complex Systems, Biophysics
- Theoretical and Computational Physics of Soft and Active Matter, with Applications to Biological and Complex Systems
- Nonequilibrium Statistical Physics (Models such as Stochastic Lattice Gas, Coupled Burgers Equations, etc.)
- Quantum Simulations, Synthetic Quantum Matter, and Quantum Information
- Pulsars and Gravitational Waves (Theory and Data Analysis)
Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences
- Land-Atmosphere Interactions
- Atmospheric/Climate Modeling
- Tropical Meteorology
- Atmospheric aerosols and boundary layer
- Atmospheric physics
- Cloud Physics
- Atmospheric Dynamics
- Geochemistry, Paleoclimatic reconstruction
- Stable isotope tracers in precipitation
- Igneous Petrology and Geochemistry
- Structural geology, rheology, tectonics
- Aquatic biogeochemistry
CHPC Centre of High-Performance Computing
| Research areas | Relevant Areas |
|---|---|
| Quantum information theory and quantum computing | MSc in Physics |
| Bioinformatics, Computational Biology, NGS analysis | MSc in Bioinformatics/Computational Biology or other relevant areas with interest and experience in computational genomics. |
| Numerical methods for Partial differential equations, Computational fluid dynamics, Hyperbolic system of conservation | M.Sc/M.Tech in Mathematics.Familiar with PDEs, Numerical methods, Scientific computing. |
| Computational Fluid Dynamics,Numerical methods for PDEs,HPC for Computational Biology of the Heart. | M.Sc/M.Tech in Mathematics/Data Science/Biomedical engineering. Background in PDEs, Numerical methods,Scientific computing, and/or Computational biology preferred |
| Theoretical and Computational Biology: Tissue regeneration, Cell Polarity, Signal processing | MSc/MTech in Physics or Mathematics or Computer Science BE/BTech (4 years) Physics or Mathematics or Computer Science |
| Theoretical and Computational Chemical physics and Softmatter biological physics | Masters in Chemistry/Physics/ Biophysics/Computational Biology;Experience in theoretical physical chemistry/soft matter physics/biophysics preferred. Background and experience in numerical techniques and computations preferred. |
Application Procedure
- Applicants should complete the online application form at the url: ( https://admissions.iisertvm.ac.in/phd/index.php/applicant/register/20 ).
- Only applications complete in all respects would be considered. Do not forget to click the “Submit” button after completing your application.
- Applicants will also be prompted to upload all the supporting documents online.
- Applicants should provide Name/Affiliation/Contact number and Email addresses of two referees in the application form.
- On submission of the online application form, the applicants will receive an acknowledgement email with a unique application number.
- Applicants are NOT required to post a hard copy of the application to IISER TVM.
- In case of any application-related queries, please contact the Ph.D. coordinator by email at: phdprogramme@iisertvm.ac.in. Any other mode of communication will not be entertained.
- Mere fulfilment of the eligibility criteria does not entitle a candidate to be called for the interview.
Selection Process
Biological Sciences
It is mandatory for a candidate to submit a short “Statement of Purpose” of 300-400 words, based on a research area the candidate finds interesting. While applying online, the proposal has to be uploaded under the section “Statement of Purpose (SOP)”. The proposal need not be related to the research ongoing at the School of Biology, IISER TVM. Short-listed candidates will have to appear for interviews conducted by IISER TVM in hybrid mode. There will be two rounds of interviews. The first round of interviews will be conducted online. Candidates who are shortlisted further for the final round of interviews will have to appear in person at IISER TVM campus. The final selection of candidates will solely be based on the performance during the interviews.
Chemical Sciences
Marks and Ranks (CSIR-JRF/UGC-JRF/GATE) based shortlisting and interview in person.
Physical Sciences
During the application process, the candidates will be asked to enter one of the choices among 1) Theoretical, 2) Experimental. The shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend interviews conducted in hybrid mode.
Mathematical Sciences
Candidates meeting all the eligibility criteria will be further shortlisted and be called for offline interviews at IISER TVM.
Data Sciences
During the application process, a candidate will be asked to select one or more choices of the research areas for the School of Data Science based on her/his qualifications. The shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend interviews which will be conducted in online mode at IISER TVM.
Earth, Environmental and Sustainability Sciences
Applications will be shortlisted based on marks and the shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend interviews which will be conducted in hybrid mode at IISER TVM.
CHPC
During the application process, a candidate will be asked to select one or more choices of the research area for the centre based on her/his qualification. The shortlisted applicants will be invited to attend inter-views which will be conducted in hybrid mode at IISER TVM.
Important Dates
- Online application portal opened from: 20 March, 2026
- Last date for receipt of online applications: 20 April, 2026
Tentative Interview Dates
- Biological Sciences (First round – online): 1 June, 2026 to 7 June, 2026
- Biological Sciences (Final round – in-person): 1 July, 2026 to 7 July, 2026
- Chemical Sciences: 19 May, 2026 to 21 May, 2026
- Physical Sciences: 7 May, 2026 to 8 May, 2026
- Mathematical Sciences: 13 May, 2026 to 15 May, 2026
- Data Sciences: 8 May, 2026 to 14 May, 2026
- EESS: 7 May, 2026 to 8 May, 2026
- CHPC: 21 May, 2026 to 22 May, 2026
Application Fee
- General/OBC Candidates: Rs. 500/-
- SC/ST/PH Candidates: Rs. 250/-