2,911 research scholars at Panjab University

Bhartesh Singh Thakur 

Tribune News Service 

Chandigarh, September 12 

Education department at Panjab University (PU) has the highest number of registered research scholars among all the departments at 291. 

A total 2,911 research scholars are reported to have been registered at the various departments of PU.

According to a report compiled by Prof Rajivlochan, Director of Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) of PU, a total of 66 departments reported that they had registered research scholars. 

The Department of Education is followed by the Department of Laws at 261. However, the departments of Chinese and Tibetan Studies and of Nanosciences have one research student each.

The Departments of Botany, Chemistry, Physics and Physical Education have more than 100 registered research scholars.  Four departments, Economics, Music, Sociology and University Institute of Pharmaceutical Sciences (UIPS), have registered research students between 70 to 100. There are 10 departments which have between 50 to 70 registered research students, 20 departments with 20 to 50 PhD students and 24 have less than 20 research scholars.  For many years, the PU has been rated very high on the number of research papers and research citations. "Some people say that most of that achievement is the consequence of a handful of departments performing extraordinarily well. However, other departments too contribute considerably to the research performance of the PU. This becomes evident when we dig into various aspects of research performance of the PU," said the report. "The first stages of research at a university involve a single research student who works under the supervision of a senior practitioner in that field of knowledge," added the report. 

Multiple supervisors

At the PU, a number of research scholars have been assigned multiple supervisors. According to the IQAC, "This is an indicator of, among other things, the complexity of the problem on which the researcher was working. That it required that the researcher have access to guides from diverse disciplines. Having multiple supervisors will also be an indicator of the reach that the department has with other professional experts in the field and the ability of the department to involve them in the research work done at the department."  There are 50 PhD students with as many as three supervisors. There are 648 students with two supervisors and there are 2,901 research scholars with single supervisor.  The total number of departments that have assigned three supervisors to a research scholar are 18. Eight research scholars are with three supervisors are in the physics department.  The Centre for Nuclear Medicine has seven researchers with three supervisors and geology has six such researchers.  The Department of Laws has the most research students who have two supervisors at 93. One such supervisor is even a former judge of the High Court with the co-supervisor being from the department. The physics department has 69 researchers with more than two supervisors, followed by Chemistry, Botany and Microbiology.