Ph.D.

Ashoka University’s Ph.D. program is designed to maintain global standards in education, training, productivity, and academic freedom. The Ph.D. program in Biological Sciences is characterized by state-of-the-art laboratories and computational infrastructure, generous support to carryout field work, accomplished faculty as research mentors, and generous scholarship remunerations to all students. The unique liberal arts environment of the campus allows Ph.D. students to work on inter-disciplinary research projects drawing on the expertise of faculty members within and beyond the biology department.

The Department of Chemistry at Ashoka University offers full-time graduate program leading to Ph.D. degree in Chemical Sciences. Prospective students are encouraged to be integrated into the world class research and liberal learning culture of the Ashoka University by joining a research group, supervised by one of our academic staff, in one of the following broad areas of Chemical Sciences

Ashoka University is a pioneer in providing world-class liberal education in India. It aims to train students to think critically from a multi-disciplinary perspective to solve real-world problems. The Computer Science Ph.D. programme at Ashoka puts emphasis on novel research themes that cut across several disciplines, and faculty members are actively engaged in research in these disciplines.

The Ashoka approach to Economics is fundamentally about bringing together cutting edge economic theory and rigorous data analysis to address questions at the frontiers of research. Our faculty members are engaged in active research in applied microeconomic theory, game theory, decision theory, development economics, labour economics, health economics, public economics, political economy, behavioural economics, experimental economics, economics of discrimination, macroeconomic theory, empirical macroeconomics, monetary economics, and international finance.

The Ph.D. in English at Ashoka University aims to admit students who are passionate about literature and the world. As part of the Ph.D. programme, students study diverse modes of analysing texts, enabling them to formulate questions that are both rigorous and adventurous. The programme trains students in pedagogic practice, emphasising at every stage the dialogic nature of all learning and writing. The Ph.D. in English thus aims to produce colleagues who will inject both academic rigour and intellectual adventurousness into both their theory and practice. 

The Department of History runs a PhD Programme under the guidelines of Ashoka University and the rules and regulations of the University Grants Commission (UGC). The Programme provides students with a robust training in source-based, research-driven, serious academic history-writing. All History PhD candidates are expected to devote their full time to the PhD Programme.

The Department of Physics at Ashoka University invites applications for its Ph.D. program, starting in the spring semester (January) 2021. Currently, we invite applications only in experimental soft condensed matter physics. The Department’s work in this area is described in more detail in the faculty profiles listed below.

The Department of Psychology at Ashoka University invites application for its PhD program in cross disciplinary research spanning different domains of psychology. Our faculty expertise spans social, developmental, biological, cognitive, clinical and counseling psychology. Methodologies span qualitative and quantitative, theoretical and experimental. Prospective students are requested to visit the faculty webpages to find out more about individual faculty research and contact faculty prior to their formal application. Please read through the instructions carefully before proceeding with applications.

The Department acknowledges the unique relationship between sociology and social anthropology as it has developed and flourished in India. We emphasise the critical empiricism, theoretical engagement and comparative approach central to our best disciplinary traditions. Our faculty is actively engaged in long-term fieldwork and ethnographic research in different parts of South Asia and the Himalayan region. Faculty strengths are wide-ranging and include the study of language, law, religion, violence, nature, agrarian change, the state, sovereignty, borderlands, infrastructures, markets, political economy, mobility, informality, popular culture and mental health. Our department encourages interdisciplinary explorations with allied fields of social thought and inquiry, including history, economics, political science, psychology, philosophy, linguistics, environmental studies, computer science, planning and design, natural sciences, arts and aesthetics, law and media.