No paper, no PhD? India rethinks graduate student policy

Gayathri Vaidyanathan:

PhD students in India will no longer be required to publish articles in academic journals before they are awarded their doctorates, if the country’s higher-education regulator adopts recommendations from a committee of researchers.

The University Grants Commission (UGC) currently requires PhD students to publish at least one article in a peer-reviewed journal and present two papers at conferences or seminars before they submit their doctoral thesis for marking. India is unusual in having a national publication policy for PhD students; in many other countries, institutions set their own requirements.