IIT Guwahati PhD Admission 2025 (July)

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati invites applications for PhD program in various Departments for July 2025 session.

PhD Studentship Categories

IIT Guwahati offers admission to PhD programme under Regular Category and certain Non-Regular Categories, viz. Sponsored, Employed Part-Time, Project-Staff, External, and Self-Financed categories.

The seats offered under non-regular categories are limited to a maximum of 10% of the total number of PhD seats of the respective department/school/centre.

The details of these studentship categories are given below.

Regular Category

• The students admitted in Regular Category pursue the programme on full-time basis.
• The candidates (Indian nationals) seeking admission into PhD/MTech/MDes/MS(R) under Regular category must have qualified for receiving assistantship from IIT Guwahati or any other recognized/government funding agency.
• In addition to the prescribed Minimum Educational Qualifications (MEQ) for the respective disciplines, the candidates must have the following listed qualifications for admission to the respective programme under regular category.
• For admission into PhD programme under regular category, the candidates must have one of the following qualifications for availing respective fellowships/assistantships:
  1. For Institute Assistantship:
     1. Valid GATE/CEED Score.
     2. BTech/BDes/MSc/MA/MTech/MDes/MS degree from an IIT with a minimum CPI of 8.0 on 10-point scale.
     3. UGC-CSIR-NET (Assistant Professorship) in case of Arts background candidates.
     4. MTech/MDes/MS(R) or an equivalent degree:
        • Either qualified GATE/CEED (at some point of time, which need not be valid now),
        • Or, qualify in the written examination conducted by IIT Guwahati. Click Here for the information related to the examination.
  2. For Fellowships from External Agencies:
     1. NET-JRF of CSIR/UGC/DST/DBT/ICMR/ICAR
     2. NBHM Doctoral Scholarship
     3. DAE Graduate Fellowships Scheme (DGFS)
     4. UGC Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship (UGC RGNF) Scholarship Scheme
• The candidates qualified for INSPIRE Fellowship shall be admitted in self-financed category only. As and when the fellowship is awarded, they will be converted to the regular category from the “Effective Date” of fellowship.

Non-Regular Categories

Sponsored

• The candidates under Sponsored Category are sponsored (with a study leave of requisite period of the programme) by a recognized R&D organization, academic institution, government organization or industry for pursuing the programme at IIT Guwahati.
• They pursue the programme at the Institute on full-time basis.
• The Institute does NOT provide any assistantship to the students under this category.
• The candidate under this category must be a regular employee of his/her organization with at least one year of experience for PhD/MS(R) programmes and at least two years of experience for MTech/MDes/MA programme at the time of applying and be engaged in professional work in the discipline in which admission is sought.
• They should submit Sponsorship Letter in prescribed format from the employer along with the application. The application without Sponsorship Letter will NOT be considered.
• Sponsorship Letter Format: DOC, PDF

Employed Part-Time

• The candidates under Employed Part-Time Category are professionally employed persons (including regular employees of IIT Guwahati), who pursues the programme while continuing the duties of his/her service.
• These candidates should be able to attend regular classes as per the schedule of the Institute during the course work.
• The Institute does NOT provide any assistantship to the students under this category.
• The candidate under this category must be a regular employee of his/her organization with at least one year of experience for PhD/MS(R) programmes and at least two years of experience for MTech/MDes programmes at the time of applying and be engaged in professional work in the discipline in which admission is sought.
• They should submit No Objection Certificate in prescribed format from the employer along with the application. The application without No Objection Certificate will NOT be considered.
• NOC Format: DOC, PDF

Project-Staff

• The candidates under Project-Staff are those presently working on sponsored R&D projects of IIT Guwahati and the remaining duration of the project at the time of admission should be at least one year.
• They should submit No Objection Certificate in prescribed format (See: NOC Format DOC, PDF) from the Dean-R&D, IIT Guwahati along with the application. The application without No Objection Certificate will NOT be considered.
• If the project gets completed before the student completes his/her programme, then his/her category will be converted to that of Self-Financed category.
• The Institute does NOT provide any assistantship to the students under this category.

External

• The candidates under External Category are employed in a recognized R&D organization, academic institution, government organization or industry with adequate Research Facilities.
• They pursue PhD programme at the Institute on Part-Time basis. However, they should be able to attend regular classes as per the schedule of the Institute during the course work.
• The PhD student under this category carries out the PhD Thesis Research Work mainly at his/her parent organization under a Local Supervisor but with the overall guidance provided by a faculty member (Institute Supervisor).
• The candidate under this category must be a regular employee of his/her organization with at least one year of experience at the time of applying and be engaged in professional work in the discipline in which admission is sought.
• They should submit Sponsorship Letter for External Category in prescribed format from the employer along with the application. The application without Sponsorship Letter will NOT be considered.
• The Institute does NOT provide any assistantship to the students under this category.
• Sponsorship Letter Format for External Category: DOC, PDF

Self-Financed

• The candidates under Self-Financed Category pursue the PhD programme at IIT Guwahati without getting financial assistantship from IIT Guwahati or any other funding agency.
• They should have at least three years of professional experience in the relevant area.
• They pursue PhD programme at the Institute on full-time basis.
• In case of working professionals, they can pursue the PhD programme on part-time basis. However, they should be able to attend regular classes as per the schedule of the Institute during the course work.

Industry-Sponsored

• The candidates under Industry-Sponsored Category are sponsored (with a study leave of requisite period of the programme) by an industry for pursuing the programme at IIT Guwahati. The Industry must be a company registered at MCA
• The Institute does NOT provide any assistantship to the students under this category.
• The candidate under this category must be a regular employee of his/her organization with at least two years of work experience at the time of admission and be engaged in professional work in the discipline in which admission is sought.
• Upon completion of the course work, the industry-sponsored candidates can execute the project in their parent company.
• These candidates can have one project supervisor from the industry with relevant experience.
• The proposed fees for the industry-sponsored candidates is Rs.5 lacs/semester.
• They should submit Sponsorship Letter in prescribed format from the employer along with the application. The application without Sponsorship Letter will NOT be considered.
• Sponsorship Letter Format: DOC, PDF

Eligibility Requirements

For admission to the PhD Programme a candidate must have

• 4-Year/5-Year Bachelor’s Degree or a Master’s Degree, with CPI 6.0 on 10-point scale (or 60% of marks), in the relevant discipline.

Note that

• The CPI/Marks criteria will be relaxed by 0.5 CPI (or 5% marks) for SC/ST/PwD candidates.
• The concerned academic division will determine the suitability of discipline based on the advertised research areas.
• A Degree (or equivalent) issued by a University or an Institute of National Importance, for a study of at least 4 years after Class 12 will be considered.

Selection Process

• Applications of the candidates which are complete in all respects will be considered in the selection process.
• The Institute reserves the right to consider a limited number of candidates for selection process. Such shortlisting will be based on the performance in GATE/NET/CEED, grades/marks in the qualifying degree examination and/or other educational qualifications starting from Class 10.
• For PhD programme, the shortlisting and selection may be done specialization wise by the respective department/school/centre.
• The selection process involves the performace of candidates in the written test and/or interview conducted in various stages in a particular mode (offline/online/hybrid) as decided by the respective department/school/centre.
• Applicants have to visit this website and websites of respective department/school/centres regularly for information regarding shortlisting and selection of candidates. No personalized information can be expected in this regard. IIT Guwahati will not be responsible for delayed response from the applicants.

Application Process

• Applications are to be submitted online.
• Applications will not be accepted in any other mode.
• Before submission of applications, please go through the information provided on this admission website carefully.
• Candidates need to register only once on the Application Portal. Under the same login, candidates can submit applications to multiple programmes and disciplines. But, application fee should be paid separately for each application.
• Submission of online application is a three step process. Unless all the three steps are completed, the application will not be treated as complete. Incomplete applications will not be considered for processing.
  • Step-1: Personal information including the educational qualifications.
  • Step-2: Selection of programme.
  • Step-3: Online payment of application fee.
• For submission of applications to different programmes and disciplines, the candidates have to repeat step-2 and step-3.

• Opening of Application Portal for Submission of Applications: March 21, 2025
• Closing of Application Portal: April 15, 2025 at 05:00 PM
• Selections will be conducted during: May 15, 2025 to June 25, 2025
• Registration of New students: July 21, 2025
• Orientation for New Students: July 22, 2025
• Classes will be starting from: July 23, 2025

• Notification
• Application Portal
• IIT Guwahati Website