Start Early PhD
IIT Gandhinagar recognizes the importance of creating opportunities for aspiring young learners to gain entry into the exciting arena of scientific research. The Start Early Ph.D. Fellowship of IITGN is conceived to meet this need. This full-time residential fellowship is designed to enable budding scientists and engineers to gain early entry into the Ph.D. programmes at IIT Gandhinagar. The objective of this programme is to put promising young undergraduate students from diverse disciplines on the fast-track mode of cutting edge technological research in order to prepare them to participate in the process of nation building.
Important Dates (Phase-II)
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February 11, 2026 (Wednesday)
Application Opens
March 25, 2026 (Wednesday)
by 5:00 PMApplication Deadline
April 8, 2026 (Wednesday)
Announcement of the Shortlisted Candidates (tentative)
15 April - 14 May 2026
Written test and/or interview
Research overview | List of Scholars | PhD — Find out more
Click Here to Apply
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Eligibility Criteria
Eligibility Criteria
Final year BTech (4-year programme)/BS (4-year programme)/Integrated Master of Science (5-year programmes) students from IITs/IISc with a CPI/CGPA of not less than 6.0 out of 10 at the end of their 3rd year.
Final year BTech (4-year programme)/BS (4-year programme)/BS-MS (5-year programme) students from NITs/IISERs with a CPI/CGPA of not less than 8.0 at the end of their pre-final year.
For students in SC/ST/PwD category, a relaxation of 0.5 in the CPI/CGPA shall be applicable on the above-mentioned norms.
Final year BTech students from other select colleges, as defined by the institute, who are among the top 5 rank holders in the departments at the end of their pre-final year. For students in SC/ST/PwD category, they need to be among the top 10 rank holders as per the relaxed criteria.
You may check with the HOD/Director of your college to see if your college is included in the list of select colleges. The Department Head / Principal / Director of the respective institute will be required to issue a rank certificate supporting each application. You may download a template of the certificate from the application portal. Students may contact us admission@iitgn.ac.in to check their eligibility.There is No GATE qualification requirement.
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Fellowship
Fellowship
Rs. 47,000/- per month (with valid GATE score)
Rs. 37,000/- per month (without GATE score)
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Highlights
Highlights
GATE score is NOT mandatory for admission
Candidates are encouraged to appear for GATE for an enhanced stipend rate
Monthly stipend of Rs 47,000 (For candidates with valid GATE score) or Rs 37,000 (for others)
Travel support up to Rs 2 Lakhs for attending international conferences
Support of up to $12,500 may be considered for research at leading Universities/Labs abroad for a period of upto 6 months. -
Application Procedure
Application Procedure
All applications must be submitted online. On submission of the application form, the candidate will be redirected to the homepage of the portal, where they can download the form. The applicants are requested to download the form and keep a copy with them. A mail to the candidate regarding the details of the application and a link to download the application form is sent after the submission.
You need to furnish a hardcopy of the application form and all the documentary evidence (copies of testimonials, certificates, publications, work experience and research/professional experience) at the time of interview. Incomplete applications will be rejected.
While applying online you need to upload a rank certificate issued by the Head of the Department of your college/university.There is NO application fee.
You NEED NOT send the hard-copy of the application form.
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Admission Procedure
Admission Procedure
Admission is generally offered on the basis of an interview, which is supplemented by a written test if necessary. The final selection will be mainly based on academic credentials, written test and/or interview.
The reserved category candidates will be given due relaxation in cutoff marks as per the norms.
The mode (offline/online) and dates for the written test (if any) and interview will be communicated to the shortlisted candidates by their respective departments.
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Important Dates
Important Dates
Application Opens - February 11, 2026 (Wednesday) Application Deadline - March 25, 2026 (Wednesday)
by 5:00 PMAnnouncement of the Shortlisted Candidates - April 8, 2026 (Wednesday) Written test and/or interview - 15 April - 14 May 2026 -
Focus Areas
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Archaeological Sciences
1. Environmental Archaeology, Archaeozoology and taphonomy, Geoarchaeology,
2. Archaeology, Ceramic Petrology, Ancient Technology,
3. Harappan and Protohistoric Archaeology -
Artificial Intelligence (CSE)
1. Machine learning, Game theory, Theoretical machine learning, Quantum algorithms for ML, federated learning
2. Natural Language Processing, Multilingual and Multimodal Modelling, Mechanistic Interpretability, Information Retrieval
3. Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Deep Learning Applications for Vision and Graphics
4. Human-Computer Interaction, Brain-Computer Interface, Accessibility and Assistive Technology, Explainable & Human-Centred AI, Medical Imaging and Healthcare
5. Software Engineering using Generative AI, Empirical Software Engineering, Software Testing, Compilers;
6. AI hardware design, Processor design and validation, Hardware Security, AI for Hardware Design and Test
7. Graph neural networks, GNNs for citywide simulation
8. Computational Sustainability, GeoAI, Health Sensing, Spatiotemporal AI, AI for Social Good -
Biological Sciences and Engineering
1. Computational Biology and Bioinformatics
2. Systems Biology and AI in Biology
3. Nanomaterials for biosensing and therapeutic applications
4. Biomaterials in Drug Delivery and Implants
5. Ultrasound (Imaging, Diagnostics, and Ultrasound-mediated therapy)
6. Structural Biology and Chemical Crystallography
7. Molecular biology (DNA Regulatory Mechanisms)
8. Medical technologies for organ transplants and cancer
9. Hydrophobic and bacteria repellent surfaces/coatings, Advanced Ceramics and soft materials for biomedical applications (one)
10. Molecular Neuroscience
11. RNA Biochemistry and Informatics, Long Noncoding RNA as Clinical Markers
12. Food Biochemistry, Food Science & Applied Nutrition -
Chemical Engineering
1. Reaction Engineering: Heterogeneous catalysis, Catalyst synthesis, Multiphase reactions
2. Process optimization and control: Process Engineering, Control, and Optimization, Cyber-Physical Systems for industrial manufacturing and buildings, Machine learning and data science
3. Pharmaceutical Engineering and Drug Delivery: Biomaterials, stimuli-responsive hydrogels, nano-drug suspensions, microbubbles for drug delivery and ultrasonic imaging, pharmaceutical powder processing, crystallization of pharmaceuticals, polymorphic behavior of pharmaceuticals, Amorphous Solid dispersions of Pharmaceuticals
4. Molecular Simulations: Thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, protein aggregation and folding, biomolecular simulations, molecular dynamics simulations for pharmaceutical polymorphism
5. Water Treatment: Wastewater treatment, drinking water, microbubbles for waste-water treatment
6. Environmental science and engineering: Particulate matter and aerosols, Building energy management, indoor air quality, atmospheric transport, and transformation of pollutants
7. Advanced functional materials: Functional materials for CO2 capture and adsorption, Surface Engineering and Superhydrophobic surfaces, Colloids and Interfaces, Rheology, 2D materials, Supercapacitors and other energy storage devices
8. Polymer science and engineering: Polymer processing, polymer gels, polymer blends, Shape memory polymers, Smart polymeric materials, Polymer ionic liquids, Polymer nanocomposites
9. Nano & bio-engineering: Bio-printing, 3D printing, Synthetic biology, protein engineering, Hybrid nanomaterials, and biomolecules for agricultural applications -
Chemistry
1. Machine learning potentials in material simulations;
2. Photocatalysis with gold nanoparticles, sunlight to hydrogen production, Single-particle spectroscopy, plasmonics;
3. Molecular simulations of graphene membrane;
4. Post-translational modifications influencing disordered protein aggregation;
5. Electrochemical Reduction of CO2; Molecular electrocatalysis for nitrogen to ammonia interconversion;
6. Development of novel organocatalysts, Application of organocatalysis to the asymmetric synthesis of bioactive molecules;
7. Chemical Biology, Cancer therapeutics; Drug Discovery;
8. Synthesis of fluorescent dyes and polymers; and theranostic imaging;
9. Adsorptive materials, biomass-inorganic nanocomposites, rare earth element and N-harvesting;
10. Photosensitizers for Photodynamic Therapy (PDT) and synthesis of photo-catalysts for organic transformations
11. Small molecule activation with main group metal complexes, dinitrogen fixation;
12. Electronic structure and Delta-ML models for organic solar cells and LEDs
13. Polymer Synthesis -
Civil Engineering
1. Geotechnical Engineering: Dynamic behavior of soils, soil liquefaction, suction and collapse of unsaturated soils, constitutive modeling of soils, geotechnical earthquake engineering, geosynthetics
2. Water Resources Engineering: Machine learning architectures for hydrological sciences, resilience of urban water distribution systems, land surface hydrologic modeling, remote sensing applications in hydrology, climate change impacts and risk assessment on water resources, dam breach and levee breach hydraulics, integrated urban water management, blockage/leak detection in pipes, modeling of floods and droughts, critical infrastructure resilience and system modeling
3. Structural Engineering: Fire engineering, tall structures, performance-based earthquake engineering of structures, probabilistic seismic hazard and ground motion characterization, seismic isolation of nuclear structures, structural health assessment and monitoring, resilience of infrastructure, computational solid mechanics, 3D concrete printing, topology optimization, multiscale material modeling, blast engineering
4. Environmental Engineering: Aerosols and air quality, indoor air quality, pollution mitigation, Solid Waste Management and Planning, Thermo-chemical coversion of waste and biomass, Pre-treatment of biomass, Life-Cycle Assessment of Industrial process and Waste treatment Systems
5. Transportation Engineering: Mechanistic modeling of flexible and rigid pavements, pavement-environment interaction, urban sustainability, AI/ML applications in transportation engineering
6. Construction Materials: Sustainable building materials, high-performance concrete, life cycle assessment, characterization techniques -
Cognitive and Brain Science
1. Motor Control, Visuo-motor control and processing
2. Movement Disorders, Stroke Rehabilitation
3. Emotion
4. Attentional selection and control
5. Brain Connectivity
6. Brain-Computer interface
7. NeuroAI
8. Meditation Studies -
Computer Science and Engineering
1. Theoretical computer science, Computational complexity, Algebra and computation, Algorithms, Quantum algorithms and Protocols.
2. Machine learning, Game theory, Theoretical machine learning, Quantum algorithms for ML, federated learning.
3. Formal methods and verification
4. Natural Language Processing, Multilingual and Multimodal Modelling, Mechanistic Interpretability, Information Retrieval
5. Computer Vision, Computer Graphics, Deep Learning Applications for Vision and Graphics
6. Human-Computer Interaction, Brain-Computer Interface, Accessibility and Assistive Technology, Explainable & Human-Centred AI, Medical Imaging and Healthcare
7. Software Engineering using Generative AI, Empirical Software Engineering, Software Testing, Compilers;
8. System security, Web security, Usable privacy and security
9. AI hardware design, Processor design and validation, Hardware Security, AI for Hardware Design and Test
10. Graph neural networks, GNNs for citywide simulation
11. Computer Networks, Network Security, Distributed Systems, Cloud Computing, and Computer Architecture
12. Computational Sustainability, GeoAI, Health Sensing, Spatiotemporal AI, AI for Social Good -
Design
1. Systems Thinking in Design Methods, Pedagogy, and Knowledge Practices
2. Sustainability Transitions, Circularity, and Regenerative Practices
3. Smart Products, Product–Service Systems, and Emerging Technologies
4. Human–Technology Relations and Responsible Innovation, Game design: Game Design, Game Studies, Design and Technology Studies -
Earth Sciences
1. Climate Change, Water Resources
2. Coral Reefs, Microbial Reefs, Carbonate Reservoirs, Sequence Stratigraphy
3. Seismic Hazard Analysis, Geodynamic Modelling, Statistical Seismology, Tectonics
4. Micropaleontology, Biostratigraphy, Paleobiology and Paleoclimate Reconstruction
5. Natural Hazards and risk, Remote sensing & GIS
6. Reservoir modelling, Fluid flow in rocks, Fluid-rock Interaction
7. River Science, Human-river interactions, Earth Surface Processes (ESP), DEM Applications in ESP
8. Rock mechanics, Petrophysics, Structural Geology
9. CCS/CCUS
10. Critical Minerals, Ore Genesis
11. Natural Hydrogen -
Electrical Engineering
1. Biomedical Signal Processing, Human Computer Interaction
2. Computer Vision, Image and Video Processing, Computer Graphics, Deep Learning
3. Adaptive Signal Processing, Array Signal Processing, Audio and Speech Signal Processing
4. Power systems, Smart grid and Grid Optimization
5. Electrical Machines and Power Electronics
6. Smart power electronics for Renewable Energy Integration and Electric Vehicles
7. Photonic Sensors, Mid-infrared laser spectroscopy, Optical fibre sensors, AI and ML in photonics, Nanophotonics, Chip-based biosensors
8. Computational Electromagnetics, Electromagnetic Metamaterials, Antenna synthesis
9. Next-generation ultrasound imaging and therapy
10. Wireless Communication, Sensing, and Network Intelligence -
Humanities and Social Sciences
1. Water Economics/Policy
2. Environmental Economics
3. Indian Writing in English
4. Indian - English diasporic literature
5. Representation of Women in literature
6. Bengali literature together with Indian English Literature
7. Comparative Literature
8. Classics and Epics of India
9. Culture Studies -
Integrated Circuit Design and Technology (EE)
1. Nanoelectronics, Nanoscale Semiconductor Devices, Nanotechnology, Advanced Semiconductor Devices, Emerging Memories, Multi-scale and Multi-physics modeling, Semiconductor device and process modeling, 2D Materials
2. VLSI Design, Computing in Memory for ML, AI Hardware, Hardware Security, Computer Architecture
3. Analog Circuits, High-Frequency Analog Circuit Design, Mixed-signal IC Design, Power Management IC (PMIC) Design, IoT Electronic System Design
4. Semiconductor Manufacturing, Computational Lithography
5. AI in Semiconductor device, process design and semiconductor manufacturing -
Materials Engineering
1. Numerical modeling of metal additive manufacturing process; Numerical modeling of friction stir additive manufacturing; Heat transfer and material flow modeling of Solid Stir Extrusion process; Failure mechanism analysis of liquid reinforced composite materials;
2. Materials Sustainability, Hydrophobic Surfaces, Corrosion, Tribology, Surface Science and Engineering, Advanced Ceramics Processing for Biomedical and Environmental Applications;
3. Computational Materials science; AI-ML applications in Materials Science;
4. AI/ML-assisted accelerated alloy design for high-temperature applications, Alloy design for space and powertrain applications, Smart materials (Shape memory and Superelastic);
5. Nanotechnology: Energy and Space application;
6. Quantum materials and devices for electronic applications; Advanced process control for semiconductor-grade deposition chambers;
7. Alloy design for high temperature applications; hydrogen embrittlement and corrosion;
8. Biomaterials; nanosafety; Metal Organic Frameworks;
9. Antimicrobial polymers and surfaces -
Mathematics
Algebraic Geometry, Commutative Algebra, Number theory, Analytic Number Theory and Combinatorics, Computational Geometry,
Functional Analysis, Partial Differential Equations, Inverse problems in integral geometry and PDEs,
Numerical Analysis and Scientific Computing, Stochastic Processes and Differential Equations -
Mechanical Engineering
1. Thermofluids: Fluid Mechanics and Heat transfer, Multiphase flows (drops and bubbles), Compressible flows, Turbulence, Combustion and propulsion, Geophysical Fluid Dynamics, Hydrogen Fuel cell Systems for Aerospace Applications, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Systems for Marine Applications, Hydrogen Fuel Cell Systems for Long Endurance eMobility, Energy Systems, Battery Thermal Management, Complex Fluids, Porous media, Boiling, Condensation and frosting, Microfluidics, Micro/Nanoscale Surface Engineering, Droplets and Fluid Transport. Soft and Living Matter.
2. Computational Fluid Dynamics: Meshless methods using Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics (SPH), Radial Basis Function (RBF) methods, and Moving Least Squares (MLS) approaches, Machine Learning for Computational Fluid Dynamics.
3. Robotics and Dynamical Systems: Control systems, Robotics, Robot learning, Human-robot interactions, Soft Robotics
4. Theoretical and Applied Mechanics: Mechanical Systems Design, Dynamics and Vibrations, Solid Mechanics, Computational Mechanics, Mechanics of highly deformable structures, Failure and stress-strain response of materials, Mechanics of polymers and self-healing materials, Mechanics of Biological Growth, Composites & Granular Materials, Constitutive modeling of granular materials, Damage modelling in polymer matrix composites -
Physics
1. Experimental soft condensed matter physics (colloids)
2. Quantum materials- Electrical transport,
3. Soft and active matter physics (experimental), with emphasis on enzyme-driven active systems and living materials,
4. Theoretical Condensed Matter Physics,
5. High Energy Particle Physics: Dark Matter, Flavour Physics,
6. High Energy Theory, Quantum Information & many-body physics,
7. Magnetism and Spintronics,
8. Nanomaterials in energy storage and harvesting
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