The PhD program at GIFT envisages grooming scholars with strong analytical and empirical competence to explore socio-economic issues, especially public finance. The GIFT PhD coursework is designed to train the scholars in problem solving skills and equip them with a strong foundation in theory, quantitative methods and data analytics. The program intends to provide a handholding experience to PhD scholars in data analysis, software application and academic writing leading to publication.To effectively deliver the above, the programme has a comprehensive Foundation Course (FC) to orient the students from different backgrounds towards such a framework. Upon successful completion of the FC, scholars will pursue the core coursework as per CUSAT norms and approved by the Governing Body of the Institute.Upon successful completion of the coursework the scholars are equipped to pursue the specific research problem that they have identified during the coursework for their PhD dissertation. GIFT encourages co-supervision and the PhD dissertation within the framework set by the doctoral committee and research committee.
PhD Scholars
The Ph D programme at GIFT was launched in 2018-19, with the admission of four scholars, followed by three scholars in 2019-20. In the academic year 2021-22, seven scholars were admitted to the programme. Eight scholars each joined in 2022-23 and 2023-24 followed by seven scholars in 2024-25. Currently, there are 29 ongoing research scholars across six batches. Two scholars from the first batch are already got awarded their thesis and one submitted the thesis. Two scholars from the second batch are submitted the thesis and the remaining one scholar is in the verge of their submission. One scholar from the third batch has submitted the thesis and the rest are in the final stages of their thesis. The fourth batch intend to submit their thesis by the end of this year with one already submiited. Fifth batch scholars are actively engaged in writing their chapters. The sixth batch scholars are working towards their thesis proposal and will be presenting their research proposal confirmation seminar in a couple of months’ time. Besides the coursework and writing dissertation, PhD scholars are also involved in various academic activities. The students at GIFT formed the Young Scholars Forum and began organizing various academic and cultural activities, bringing new energy and vitality to the campus. At the instance of Young Scholars Forum, an online publication, ‘Weekly Updates on Indian Economy’, was started in January 2020 at their instance. This is a weekly compilation of important news items pertaining to different aspects of the Indian economy that appeared in leading dailies, especially those dealing with the economy. This continues to be published every Friday and sent to all those on our mailing list and uploaded to the GIFT website.
The details of the PhD scholars are given below: