Activation of Research Fellowship and PhD registration with University of Kerala

1. Students who successfully pass the course work and obtain the certificates will only be eligible for activation of research fellowships and PhD registration currently with the University of Kerala.
2. Once the students are allotted to the respective laboratory, procedures for constitution of the Mentoring Committee and its first meeting will be initiated.
3. The student will have to present a PhD dissertation proposal to the and get approval to submit application to the University of Kerala before the prescribed deadline.
4. Students are expected to submit the thesis before completion of the fellowship tenure of 4 years. Extension beyond this time will be given after recommendation from the MC.
5. Students not completing their PhD within four years (or an additional 6 month extension if approved by MC) will also lose the right to continue staying in institute accommodation.

Constitution and Functioning of Mentoring Committees (MC)

1. Each PhD student has to establish a Mentoring Committee (MC) to provide timely and continued advice. The MC helps to set logical goals for the completion of the dissertation and monitors progress toward completion of degree requirements.
2. RGCB has set forth specific and stringent guidelines to ensure that every student obtains maximal benefit from this system.
3. The student's MC is formed in consultation with the student and the student's dissertation advisor. The committee will have three members in addition to the dissertation advisor, who will be the coordinator. One of the members can be from other institutes. The Director will approve the constitution of MC. Each student bears primary responsibility for setting up the MC and ensuring that it meets in a timely fashion.
4. The MC will meet once in 6 months every year till submission of dissertation.
5. At the first meeting of the MC, the student will be asked in detail of his and her interests and goals. A discussion will be initiated as to possible topics that could be given as the PhD dissertation problem. The student then has to come back at a second MC meeting as soon as possible with a proposal prepared in the DBT project format, with a power point presentation. If the committee approves the proposal, the student may proceed to submit the application to the University of Kerala. If the proposal is not acceptable to the committee, the student will be only able to submit it at the next PhD session of the University
6. The coordinator of the MC will file reports of the committee meeting in the prescribed format. The report signed by all committee members immediately upon conclusion of the meeting will be submitted to the Director. A copy of the report will be also given to the student. All reports will be kept in a student file maintained by the RGCB Projects Management Division, which will be made available to the MC at its last meeting before submission of the dissertation.
7. Students will be allowed to submit yearly reports to their fellowship funding agencies, assessment for up gradation to SRF, etc only if approved by the MC.
8. The student will be allowed to submit the dissertation to the University of Kerala only if approved by the MC at its last meeting. Hence at this meeting, the student will make a final pre-submission presentation. Students must have at least one published peer reviewed paper by this time.
9. The dissertation must show original treatment of a fitting subject, contain a scholarly review of the pertinent literature, give evidence of independent research, and be clearly, logically, and carefully written.
10. The PhD dissertation is expected to contain a substantial amount of independent research work of publishable quality. In addition to chapters of research, each dissertation must contain introduction and conclusion chapters that present the themes of the dissertation and summarize the accomplishments. In some cases the student may have done all of the work in the dissertation while often portions of the dissertation result from collaborative research. In all dissertations containing collaborative results, the dissertation should indicate concisely the individual contributors to the work.