Monday, November 24, 2008

Increase in number of Ph.D's

Subsequent to my previous post, a colleague of mine asked me about the number of chemical engineering doctorates produced by India as to whether it was unusually low in 2006. In the period 1996-2005 (ten years), IISc produced twelve Ph.D's while the rest of IITs produced around 300. To put it in another way, the number of chemical engineering doctorates produced in India during the ten year period is one-third the total number of chemical engineering doctorates awarded by USA in 2007. However, here, we believe that small is beautiful :->

On a happier note, the number of doctorates awarded in sciences and engineering in USA has increased from 29,855 to 31,801, an increase of 6.5% from 2006 to 2007. Chemical engineering has shown a moderate increase from 891 to 921, while a couple of branches (chemistry and mechanical engineering) has seen small drops in the number of Ph.D's awarded. Surprisingly, one of the largest increases has been in electrical engineering. With the President-elect promising increased funding to the sciences, I will be glad if these numbers continue to increase.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

IISc produced ONLY 12 PhDs in chem engg in a 10-year period? I can't believe this.

Giri@iisc said...

Dear Anonymous:

Since you can not believe this, I have some better news for you. For the ten year period 1998-2007, IISc produced TEN Ph.Ds in chemical engineering. I hope you feel better :-)

Giridhar

Anonymous said...

Prof. Giridhar,

When you quoted the figures, I honestly believed that 12 PhDs are the average per year . I studied at IITB, knew the situation was bad there. Never realized it was this bad at IISc too. 1998-2007 precisely coincides with the IT/software boom in India.

Yes, I feel better.. becasue I invested 5 yrs in PhD. Looks like Engg. PhDs are a dwindling community these days, hope I'll be in demand in the future..

Nice blog. Too colourful though (fonts etc.)

-kumar

Anonymous said...

Sir, can you tell me the number of Ph.D degree given per year in India (subjectwise.....e.g. phys,chem,math,bio.)?
And whats the scope after getting Ph.D in next years?

Giri@iisc said...

Around 14,000 Ph.D's are awarded every year in India. This is split as 4000 in Arts, 5000 in Science, 1000 in Agriculture, 1000 in Engineering, 1000 in Commerce and roughly 500 in Education and 250 in medicine. Within Science, it is roughly 1300 each in Chemistry and Physics.

Regarding scope, there are plenty of academic and industrial positions if you finish your Ph.D from a good institution like IISc,IIT..

Giridhar

Anonymous said...

sir,
can you tell me what is scope after phd in chemistry from any reputed university or NIT,because it is impossible for everyone to get the opportunity of doing phd in IITs or IISc.