1) School of Basic Sciences:

Biosciences	Thrust Areas in Biophysical Chemistry, Biochemistry and Microbiology (i) Protein Chemistry & Spectroscopy, Structure-Function Elucidation of Various mycobacterial and mammalian Small Heat Shock Proteins, virulence and pathogenesis of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis, exploration of therapeutic potential of peptides, Investigation of Amyloid Fibrillation and their significance in preventing different amyloid diseases Thrust Areas in Cancer Biology (i) Role of AAA+ ATPases in cancer (ii) Cancer drug discovery (iii) Gastrointestinal (gastic/stomach, pancreatic and colorectal) cancers and gut microbiota (iv) Role of probiotics as biotherapeutics for colorectal cancer prevention Thrust Areas in Chemical and Molecular Biology (i) Structure function studies on peptide or protein binding G-protein Coupled Receptors, Molecular and Cellular Biology (ii) Rational Design of Peptide / Protein as Therapeutics (Antimicrobial / Antiviral / Anti-inflammatory) (iii) Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
Chemistry	Thrust Areas in Biochemistry and Biophysical Chemistry (i) Protein Chemistry & Spectroscopy, Structure-Function Elucidation of Various Small Heat Shock Proteins Related to Different Diseases (Cataract, Leprosy and Tuberculosis). (ii) AAA+ATPase, Screening and validation of Antibacterial and Anticancer drugs Thrust Areas in Inorganic Chemistry (i) Heterocyclic Chemistry, Asymmetric synthesis using chiral pool approach; Enantioselective catalysis and new reaction methods; New molecular entities with biological properties; Dipolar Cycloadditions; C-H functionalization, Pericyclic reactions, Metathesis, Umpolung chemistry, Radical chemistry, traditional & newer functional group transformations for application in marine alkaloids synthesis, terpenoids and polyketide based natural products, Anticancer and Antimicrobial activities of plant-derived natural products. (ii) Carbohydrate Chemistry, novel synthetic methods development, Bioactive Natural and Unnatural Products synthesis (iii) Supramolecular Chemistry, Molecular Recognition through Solid State; Metal- Organic and Covalent Open Frame (MOF and COF) Compounds. (iv) Polymer chemistry: Synthesis of Chiral Polymers and their applications in chiral induction; Synthesis of Achiral and Chiral Resins and their applications in synthesis; PIL stabilized metal nanoparticles and their applications; Polyelectrolyte-DNA interaction studies; PILs for gas separation membranes; Synthesis of MIPs and resins for nuclear waste treatment; Synthesis of (RAFT derived) ionic, pH, temperature and solvent responsive homo- and block copolymers towards their self-assembling for drug delivery. (v) Design, Synthesis and Characterization of Peptides using CD, Fluorescence, ITC and NMR. Redesigning known drugs for other Therapeutic applications. (vi) Enabling technologies for organic synthesis: Photocatalysis, Synthetic organic electrochemistry, Photoelectrochemistry, Transition metal catalysis, flow chemistry. Thrust Areas in Physical, Theoretical and Computational Chemistry (i) Time-resolved spectroscopy on molecules and materials: Developing spectroscopic tools and photomaterials; Harvesting triplets from Singlet fission; Photophysics of thermally activated delayed fluorescence; Long-range charge separation in emerging photomaterials. (ii) Molecular modelling; Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. (iii) Development and application of multi-configurational Quantum Mechanical Methods to study energetics and dynamics of bound and transient states; Investigation of photochemical reactions in the non-adiabatic ("beyond-Born- Oppenheimer") realm; Computational modelling of chemical reactions using quantum mechanical (QM) and mixed quantum mechanical - molecular mechanical (QM/MM) methods; Investigation of bacterial resistance toward beta-lactam based antibiotic drugs using QM/MM methods.
Physics	Thurst Areas: (i) Accelerator based atomic, molecular and surface physics: Experimental Atomic-Molecular-Surface Physics, Molecular Electronics, Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy, nanomaterial, Biomolecules, Ion beam engineered quantum materials for energy and sensing applications, Design and fabrication of Accelerator based systems, Applications of energetic ion beam in atomic, molecular and surface phenomena, Synchrotron radiation based research, High energy charged particles use and associated instrumentation developments, Structural application, modification of materials and health/medical applications. (ii) Atomistic Modeling and Molecular Simulations: Large Scale Quantum Simulations of Nanostructures, Quantum Transport in Graphene and 2-Dimensional layered Structures, Quantum Mechanics and Molecular Mechanics, Modeling of Biological Systems, Biophysics, Energy Materials, Magnetic Materials, Materials Modeling using Machine Learning. (iii) Experimental Condensed Matter Physics: (a) Surface and Interface Physics: Growth, modification, novel applications, and related fundamental and applied physics aspects leading to Quantum devices and technology. This includes microscopy methods (use and development of novel methods), such as SEM, TEM, AFM, STM, Small angle X-Ray, XRD, Raman, UV- Vis,), Synchrotron Radiation Research, Ion beam applications (b) Strongly Correlated Electron Systems: High-temperature Superconductor, Multiferroics, and magnetoelectrics, topological phases of matter; Magnetism at the nanoscale, Anomalous Hall Effect in quantum materials, Bio Magnetism, 2D dilute magnetic semiconductors (c) Materials growth related to Energy, Quantum technology, and Strategic areas. (d) Device Physics: Fabrication, testing, and prototyping of low-dimensional, nanostructural, and quantum phenomena-based devices and associated electronics, the mechanical design of novel devices, Energy storage materials and devices, Flexible and Stretchable Devices, Biosensors, Neuromorphic devices and networks, photovoltaic and solar cell device, Light Emitting Devices (e) Energy storage materials and devices, Flexible and Stretchable Devices, Biosensors, Neuromorphic devices and networks, 2D materials, TMDs, and heterostructures. (f) Soft condensed Matter, 2D dilute magnetic semiconductor, photovoltaic and solar cell device, Light Emitting Devices, Bio Magnetism. (g) Harsh Environment Electronic Materials and their applications, Laboratory grown diamonds and electronic grade Diamond Wafers, Indigenous development of electron microscope-related technology. (iv) Experimental High Energy Physics: Rare B and charm decays (v) Nanophotonics and Plasmonics: Coupling Photonic nanostructures to Nano waveguides and resonators; Semi-Classical and Quantum Interferometers; Structured Light; Flexible and Wearable Photonics; Instrumentation for Industrial Applications; Agriphotonics; Optical Devices; Biosensing (vi) Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics/Statistical Mechanics: Quantum Dissipation & Decoherence, Open quantum system, Quantum Transport, Non-equilibrium Phenomena like the study of first passage properties (Classical & Quantum ), persistence and related topics, Topological Order, Integrable systems (vii) Theoretical High Energy Physics: Classical and Quantum Gravity, Mathematical Physics, String Theory, Black Hole Thermodynamics and Phase transitions, AdS/CFT Correspondence, Quantum Field Theory, gauge theory, Mathematical aspect of QCD (viii) Computational soft matter and biophysics: phase transitions and critical phenomena, phase behavior and wetting phenomena of flexible and semi-flexible polymers, polymer nanocomposites, self-assembly of colloids, cellular uptake of deformable nanoparticles, and active matters.
Mathematics	Complex Analysis, Complex Dynamics and Fractals, Functional Analysis, Vibrational inequalities, Complementarity problems, Algebra, Combinatorial Matrix Theory, Spectral Graph Theory, Data mining, and Portfolio Analysis, Soft Computing, Optimization Theory, Numerical Analysis, Fluid Dynamics, Bio-fluid dynamics, Computational Fluid dynamics, Numerical Methods for PDEs, Probability Theory and Random Matrix Theory, Queueing Theory, Stochastic models, Applied Probability, Control of Queues. Number Theory, Stochastic Partial Differential Equations.

2) School of Earth, Ocean & Climate Sciences: 

Atmosphere and Ocean Sciences	Satellite and Physical Oceanography; Ocean Dynamics; Monsoon; Extreme Weather Events; Atmosphere and Ocean Modeling; Atmospheric Aerosols and Climate; Energy and Climate; Urban Weather and Climate; Ocean Biogiochemistry; Machine learning applications in Climate Sciences; air pollution; Ocean Biogeochemistry, Coastal Processes.
Geology	Structural Geology; Landslides; Hydrogeochemisty; Geothermics; Environmental Geochemistry; Crust-mantle interaction; Mobility of metals in marine sediments and minerals; Mafic-ultramafic rocks in continental shear zones

3) School of Electrical Sciences:

Computer Science	Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, Internet-of-Things, Cyber-Physical Systems, Multi-Robot Systems, Distributed Systems, Algorithms, Computer Vision, Visual Surveillance, Intelligent Transportation Systems, Software Defined Networks, Cryptography and Network Security, Formal Methods for Testing and Verification, Languages, Compilers, High Performance Computing Architecture.
Electronics and Communication Engineering	Integrated Circuits and VLSI Systems, Semiconductor devices, Antennas and Arrays, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Biomedical Signal Processing, Cognitive Radio, Digital Signal Processing, Image and Video Processing, Computer Vision, Information Theory and Coding, RF and Microwave , Multimedia, Communication Systems, Optical Communication, Fiber Sensors, Speech Processing, Wireless Communications.
Electrical Engineering	Renewable Energy Systems, Micro-Grid and Smart-Grid, Power System Protection, Power Quality, Power System Operation and Planning, Power Electronics and Drives, Control System, Electric Vehicle, Electric Machine Design, High Voltage Engineering.

4) School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management:

Economics	Open macroeconomics and Natural Resource Economics. Environmental Economics, Natural Resource Management and Rural Development, Climate Change, Mining Economics, Financial Management, Health Economics, Transportation Economics, Financial Economics, Behavioural Economics, Energy Economics & Health Economics, Finance.
English	Commonwealth Studies, Indian Diaspora Literature, Travel Writings/Autobiographies/Memoirs, Indian Writing in English. Postcolonial World Literature, Native North American Literature, Indigenous Literature Written in English, Indian Writing in English, ELT, Cross-cultural Communication, Business Communication, Eco Lit, Memory Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Nationalist Thought, Comparative Mythology and Culture Studies
Psychology	Psycholinguistics, Cognitive Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Neurolinguistics, Cyber Psychology, Social Cognition and Social Psychology, Positive Psychology, Mental Health of Marginalized Populations, Clinical and Health Psychology, Cultural Psychology, Qualitative Research in Social Science
Philosophy	Applied Philosophy, Environmental Ethics and Phenomenology, Indian Philosophy and Philosophy of Language.

5) School of Infrastructure (Civil Engineering):

1. Water Resources Engineering:	Hydraulics, Hydrology, Watershed Management
2. Structural Engineering:	Structural Dynamics, Concrete Technology, Mechanics of laminated composites, Solid and Structural Mechanics, Dynamic Soil-Structure Interaction. Structural health monitoring optimisation, Retrofitting of heritage structures, Non-local theory, and constitutive modelling.
3. Geotechnical Engineering:	Dynamics of Soil and Foundation, Offshore Geotechnology, Geotechnical Earthquake Engineering, Soil-structure Interaction, Geotechnics of Soil Erosion, Ground Improvement, Environmental Geotechnics.
4. Transportation Engineering:	Travel Behaviour, Public Transport, Traffic System Analysis, Green Transport, Transport Economics, Traffic Engineering, Intelligent Transportation System, Performance Based Geometric Design of Highways, Road Safety, Alternative Materials for Road Construction, Bitumen Rheology and Ageing of Bitumen, Design of Low Energy Asphalt Mixes, Pavement Recycling, Design of Climate Resilient and Sustainable Pavements, Transportation Geotechnics, Pervious Concrete Pavements.
5. Environmental Engineering:	Water and Wastewater Treatment, Solid Waste Management, waste to Energy Sustainable natural wastewater treatment.

6) School of Mechanical Sciences:

Mechanical Engineering

Fluid Mechanics, Turbulence, Computational Fluid Dynamics, Large Eddy Simulation, Fluid-structure interaction, Aero and hydrodynamic propulsion, electronics cooling and Thermal Management, flapping wings, wind Turbine, Aerodynamics Flow Control Heat Transfer, Inverse Heat Transfer, Two Phase Heat Transfer, Bio-Heat Transfer, Thermal System Optimization, Radiation Heat Transfer in Participating Medium, Conjugate Heat Transfer, Thermal energy storage system, modelling of cryopreservation, Atmospheric Radiation, Remote Sensing, Experimental Combustion, Energy Systems, Sustainable Fuels, Reacting & Non-Reacting Flow Diagnostics, Combustion Modelling. Acoustics, Composite Materials, Sandwich Structures, Fracture Mechanics, Composite Materials, Smart Composite Structures, Vibration, Solid Mechanics, Robotics, Biologically inspired robotics, Human assistive devises, Industrial Noise Control, Condition Monitoring, Multiscale methods for Fracture, Molecular Dynamics; Fracture in Multiphysics problems; structural dynamics, Non-linear elasticity, Mechanics of inflatable structures, Experimental modal analysis, Discrete Element Modelling, Deformable granular materials, Discrete model for shape memory alloy, Sensors. Conventional Machining, Modelling & Simulation of Machining Process, Sustainable Machining, Machining of Super alloys, Computer Aided Manufacturing, Cellular Manufacturing, Reverse Engineering, Laser Material Processing, Laser based additive manufacturing/cladding, Pulse Heat Transfer in Manufacturing Analysis, Non-conventional Machining, Hybrid machining techniques, Machining of ceramic and hard materials, Surface texturing, Micro-machining and Tribology. Dissimilar high strength alloy welding, Hot wire TIG welding of super alloys, Modelling of arc welding processes, residual stress and distortion control in welded structures, TIG cladding and laser treatment for cutting tool life enhancement, Residual stress control in multi-metallic wire arc additive manufacturing (WAAM), Post-processing of 3D-printed parts, electrochemical 3D Printing (EC3DP), LVOF and HVOF based TBC and wear resistance coating, Modelling and Friction stir welding (FSW) of Al and Mg alloys, FSW tool design, residual stress control in friction stir welded joints, investment casting of high temperature alloys, manufacturability and synthesis of in- situ MMC of Al and Mg alloys, Metal Forming, Plasticity, Mechanical behavior of Materials, Biomedical image processing using Artificial Intelligence and Deep learning, Autonomous underwater navigation and structural health monitoring using computer vision.

 7) School of Minerals, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering: 

Minerals, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering

Physical Metallurgy: Aluminium-based alloys and composites, Recycling of aluminium alloys, Semisolid metal processing, Processing, Characterization and Modelling of High Entropy Alloys; Light weight High Entropy Alloys; Metal - Metal composites; Specialty alloys for marine applications; Coatings for technological applications, Corrosion of advanced materials, Recrystallization behaviour and grain boundary engineering, High entropy alloy thin films Energy and functional materials: Photovoltaics with oxide perovskites and double-perovskites; Piezoelectric-polymer composites for energy harvesting; Materials for metal-ion batteries; Hydrogen storage materials; Energy materials, Batteries, Eletro-spraying, Multi-ferroic oxide solar cells and Conventional solar cells. Ab-initio studies in functional and energy materials, Thermoelectric materials, Thermal and electrical properties of nanostructured materials, Biocomposites Materials processing: Process metallurgy, Iron and Steel Making, Non-ferrous Extractive Metallurgy, Friction Stir Welding, Additive Manufacturing, Hydrogen based alternative ironmaking processes; Powder metallurgy of nanocrystalline materials, Surface engineering; Stainless steel and Ferroalloy Production, Lead free solder alloys through powder processing; Hybrid joining; Mechanical metallurgy: Severe plastic deformation of light metals and alloys, Strain-rate sensitivity in metals and alloys, Superplasticity, Virtual characterization using crystal plasticity based finite element modelling; Tribology of aluminium alloys; Mesoscale experimental mechanics; Creep and fatigue of advanced materials Modelling, Simulation, Process control and Automation: Phase-field modelling of microstructural evolution; Chaos analysis of dynamical systems; Kinetic and thermodynamic modeling of extractive Metallurgical processes; Process Optimization, Chaos control and dynamic process control, Nonlinear dynamical systems' control in iron and steelmaking; Application of AI techniques; Coupled FEM-DEM modelling

 

 

An interested candidate meeting the below listed category wise minimum eligibility criteria may apply for the PhD programme. The minimum eligibility criteria do not guarantee either shortlisting or selection, for the admission. Applications not meeting minimum eligibility criteria will be rejected without any intimation and the application fee will not be refunded.
The minimum eligibility criteria refer to the minimum academic qualification to be met by the applicant at the time of applying for the admission. Relaxation up to 5% marks in all academic examinations is permitted only for SC/ST/PwD candidate categories, over General/OBC(NCL) categories, as per Govt. of India (GoI) guidelines. This is applicable to applicants under both Institute and Sponsored PhD Scholar categories.
Candidates possessing the minimum eligibility criteria are eligible to receive Institute Research Assistantship or UGC/CSIR-NET Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) or any other doctoral fellowship offered by Govt. of India (GoI), as applicable, on joining the PhD programme.

 

 

Institute PhD Scholar refers to the PhD student who receives Institute Research Assistantship sanctioned the Ministry of Education (MoE) and offered through the institute. Eligibility criteria for different schools are as follows.

 

GATE / NET Disciplines for PhD admission

School Name	GATE Discipline		UGC-CSIR-NET (LS) Discipline
School of Humanities, Social Sciences and Management	Economics English Psychology Philosophy		Economics English Psychology Philosophy
School of Electrical Sciences	Electrical Engineering	Electrical Engineering (EE) Instrumentation (IN)	Electronic Science (Code-88)
	Computer Science and Engineering	Computer Science and Information Technology (CS)	Computer Science and Applications (Code-87)
	Electronics and Communication Engineering	Electronics and Communication Engineering (EC) Instrumentation Engineering (IN) Electrical Engineering (EE)	Electronic Science (Code-88)
School of Earth, Ocean and Climate Sciences	Geology (GG)		Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences
	Atmosphere and Ocean Science (AS, CE, CS, GG, IN, ME, XE, PH, MA)		Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences Physical Sciences Mathematical Sciences
School of Infrastructure	Civil Engineering (CE)
School of Mechanical Sciences	B.Tech Specializations M.Tech Specializations Mechanical Engineering Mechanical Engineering Production Engineering Production Engineering Manufacturing Engineering Manufacturing Engineering Aerospace Engineering Aerospace Engineering Industrial Engineering Industrial Engineering Mechatronics Mechatronics Computational Mechanics Computational Mechanics Robotics Robotics Automobile Engineering Automobile Engineering Chemical Engineering Metallurgy/ Materials Engineering Chemical Engineering Applied Mechanics Naval Architecture
School of Minerals, Metallurgical and Materials Engineering	Metallurgical Engineering (MT) Mechanical Engineering (ME) Engineering Sciences (XE) Production and Industrial Engineering (PI)
School of Basic Sciences	Physics Chemistry Mathematics MA (Mathematics) ST(Statistics) CS (Computer Science and Engineering) Biosciences Biotechnology Life Sciences		Physics Chemistry Mathematics MA (Mathematics) ST(Statistics) CS (Computer Science and Engineering) Biosciences Life Sciences

 

 

There are three types of sponsored PhD scholars in the institute. Eligibility criteria for each of these categories are as follows.

 

PhD scholars joining under this category do not receive any financial support from the institute. They must be in continuous service for at least three (3) years in any one of the following categories of organizations where appropriate R&D facilities exist:

1. Departments and Ministries of the Government of India or any other government organization.
2. Established industrial research and developmental organizations.
3. Recognized autonomous bodies and public undertakings.
4. Recognized universities/colleges.
5. Established industries.

 

Candidates having CSIR-UGC NET (JRF) or any other doctoral fellowship offered by GoI are eligible to apply under this category. PhD scholars joining under this category receive financial support from respective GoI doctoral fellowships. They must meet the same minimum academic qualification applicable for Institute PhD Scholar as under Section 1.1.These candidates need not be GATE qualified.

Persons who possess the minimum prescribed qualifications as mentioned in Section 1.1 and are already working in a sponsored project of the Institute as JRF/SRF/equivalent availing minimum fellowship as that of Institute PhD scholar shall be eligible for applying to the Ph.D. program under this category. These candidates must be GATE/CSIR-UGC NET (LS) qualified.

For this category of candidates, the followings also apply:

1. They receive assistantship from the fund available in the project under the personnel/manpower budget head (to be referred as Project Fund now onwards) and the fellowship amount is at least equal to that of Institute PhD scholar.
2. The remaining period of the project fund (in a single project) as well as the remaining tenure of the same project should be at least 2 years from the date of enrollment in the PhD program in the Autumn/Spring Semester as per the academic calendar (if selected).

 

Category 3 - Joint MSc-PhD Students of IIT Bhubaneswar(Only for autumn semester admissions) :

(Refer to MSc regulation – Modalities for Enrolment in PhD Programme for more detail)

This programme is applicable for bright and motivated students pursuing MSc programmes at IIT Bhubaneswar. Applicants must have completed third semester. Students securing CGPA >= 8.5 after their third semester are automatically shortlisted for appearing the selection test for joining the PhD programme in the following Autumn semester. They are required to submit a declaration towards joining the PhD program within two weeks of declaration of the third semester result. Students who have not submitted the said declaration in time will not be considered for selection test.
Their selection test will be conducted along with the Autumn semester PhD admission of the institute. There will be a discipline wise cap of 10% of the sanctioned strength (rounded upward) on the number of students who can avail this option. They will be enrolled for the PhD programme in the Autumn semester, if selected after the selection tests.

 

Application Fee (Non-refundable):

For General, General (EWS) and OBC Candidates	:	Rs. 500/- (Rupees Five Hundred Only)
For SC/ST/PwD Candidates	:	Rs. 250/- (Rupees Two Hundred Fifty Only)

N.B.

• Application Fee (Non- refundable): USD 50 for all category (Foreign Nationals).
• Application fee once paid shall not be refunded under any circumstances.
• Female candidates are exempted from payment of application fee.