BANGALORE:  As compiled by the institute's students the data from 1990 onwards shows that researchers have an average of years to complete their PhDs at the IIT-Bombay. The maximum time in completion of a PhD took two candidates around 14 years while the fastest PhD took two years to complete. All four candidates belonging to the chemical engineering department have their data to further reveal that on an average, computer science engineers face the longest time to complete their PhDs as compared to candidates in other department. On the other hand, Civil engineers have the least average duration with (5.1 years) for completing their PhDs, reports ET.

Standard notion on campus is believed to be that researchers face the duration of five years to acquire their PhD, a majority of them which is about 32pct have faced a duration of six years on average. Over 40 candidates have taken ten plus years to finish their PhDs. Two candidates from the chemical engineering department faced duration of 14 years to complete their PhDs, the professors deeming it to be one-off cases.

 Other PhD candidates from other departments which include humanities, computer sciences and engineering, bio-sciences and bioengineering, mathematics, and metallurgical engineering have taken over six years to finish their research. Earth sciences department and Civil engineering candidates are said to take the least time when compared with others.

Devang Khakhar, director of the institute said that the time difference also depends on the subject of research. "The part-time Ph D candidates, which make up for a significant number, take longer than the others as the candidates are also doing jobs. The institute does not have a segregated list, but we will soon work on it and have a better analysis," he added.
 

Although the students have produced available data from 1990, PhDs before 1999 haven’t all been uploaded online. Hence, the data coming from the period before 1999 is incomplete.

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