Wednesday, April 25, 2012

CSIR-NATIONAL CHEMICAL LABORATORY PhD Programme, August 2012


CSIR-NATIONAL CHEMICAL LABORATORY 
(Council of Scientific and Industrial Research)
Pune 411008

PhD Programme, August 2012


CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory

CSIR-NCL invites applications for PhD programme in Science and Engineering, for the July 2012 session. Candidates are requested to go through the details under various links on the left side.

Applications are to be submitted online. The starting date for online application is April 25, 2012 and the closing date is May 18, 2012. To apply online, click here Apply online

Eligibility Criteria:

PhD Programme in Science:

(i) Masters degree in Chemical/Physical/Biological and related sciences/technology

AND

(ii) A valid research fellowship offer from UGC/CSIR/DBT/ICMR/BINC/DST-INSPIRE or any other research fellowship programme.

Candidates who have qualified only the CSIR/UGC lectureship (LS) category or GATE are not eligible.

PhD Programme in Engineering:

For applicants with a Bachelor’s degree in Chemical Engineering/Technology/related discipline:

(i) Minimum of 55% marks or 5.5 CGPA or equivalent at the Bachelors degree level (50%  marks or 5.0 CGPA for SC/ST/PH candidates)
(ii) A valid GATE score above the qualifying score for that subject OR A valid research fellowship offer from CSIR/UGC/DBT/ICMR/BINC/DST-INSPIRE or any other research fellowship programme 
(iii) Age on August 15, 2012 should be less than 28 yrs (relaxable upto 5 years in case of candidates belonging to Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes, women, physically handicapped and OBC applicants).

For applicants with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering/Technology/related discipline:

(i) Minimum of 55% marks or 5.5 CGPA or equivalent at the Master’s degree level (50%  marks or 5.0 CGPA for SC/ST/PH candidates). A Bachelor's degree in Engineering/Technology is desirable. 
(ii) A valid research fellowship offer from CSIR/UGC/DBT/ICMR/BINC/DST-INSPIRE or any other research fellowship programme

Research Areas at CSIR-NCL
Advanced Functional Materials
Agricultural Biotechnology 
Analytical Chemistry
Artificial Intelligence
Biomass for Energy, Fuels, and Chemicals
Bioorganic Chemistry 
Biotransformation and Enzymes
Catalysis (Homogeneous and Heterogeneous)
Chaos Theory and Turbulence
Chemical Engineering
CO2 storage and utilization
Coal Gasification and Combustion
Complex Fluids and Polymer Engineering
Crystal Chemistry and Crystallography
Crystallization
Effluent Treatment/Water Recycle and Reuse
Electrochemical Power Sources and Energy Technology
Environmental Biotechnology  
Fuel Cells
Fluid Modeling and Computational Fluid Dynamics 
Genomics and Molecular Parasitology
Green Chemistry
Hydrogen Generation
Machine Design
Magnetism and Magnetic Materials
Mass Spectrometry
Materials Chemistry/Physics
Materials for Solar Energy
Materials for Biomedical Applications
Mathematical and System Biology
Medicinal Chemistry
Metabolomics
Microbial and Mammalian Cell Culture
Microbial Fermentation
Microbial Technology and Microbial Genetics
Micro-fluidics
Mixing and Micro-mixing
Molecular Host-pathogen Interactions
Molecular Marker Technology
Multiphase Flows
Multiphase Reactors
Nanomaterials 
Nonlinear Dynamics
Organic Chemistry 
Physical Organic Chemistry
Plant Tissue Culture 
Polymer Science
Process Design Modeling and Simulation
Process Engineering and Scale-up
Process Intensification
Proteomics
Reaction Engineering
Reactive Separations
Separation Science
Soft Condensed Matter Theory
Solid State NMR of Materials
Structure-function and Crystallography of Biomolecules
Structure-Property-Processing Correlation Studies
Surfaces and Interfaces
Theoretical Chemistry and Computational Science
Tissue Engineering
Tribology
Utilization of Natural Gas
Wireless Process Sensors and Process Control 


PhD programme at CSIR-NCL

CSIR-NCL has an active research program leading to Ph.D. degree under the disciplines of Physical, Chemical, Life and Engineering sciences.  It provides a stimulating atmosphere, which fosters creativity and encourages innovative thinking and research. 

The PhD program consists of flexible course work, laboratory training, research project to demonstrate attainment of a high degree of scientific ability which is followed by advanced research leading to a PhD thesis on a specific topic. The PhD program is normally completed in 4-5 years. During the first year, the students have to go through a course work covering basic and advanced topics. The students are encouraged to take courses in inter-disciplinary areas. Apart from the subject courses, short courses in research methodology, scientific communication and laboratory safety are mandatory for all the students. As part of the PhD program, the PhD student is expected to give at least two seminars.

All the selected students are expected to undergo coursework (approximately two semesters for students with a Bachelor’s degree, one or two semesters for students with a Masters) and pass the qualifying examination to be declared as Ph.D. candidates. The qualifying examination will test knowledge of the core subjects.

Various awards, for best research work, best publication, travel grant to attend conferences abroad, etc are provided to Ph.D. students.  Additional incentives will be available for interdisciplinary research. Hostel facilities are available for regular CSIR-NCL students. More hostel and student recreation facilities will be coming up for the benefit of research students.

The selected JRFs will be eligible for a fellowship and House Rent Allowance (HRA) as admissible under rules and a Contingency grant.  On completion of two years, JRFs could be upgraded to Senior Research Fellowship (SRF) based on an assessment.  The total tenure including the fellowship period shall not exceed 5 years.


Selection Procedure:
Admission is through an initial screening based on minimum eligibility criteria followed by further screening test and/or personal interview.

Candidates applying to the PhD programme who fulfil the minimum eligibility criteria as mentioned on the main page may apply online at the link provided. The list of candidates eligible for appearing for the written test and/or interviews, after initial screening, will be uploaded on this website. Final list of eligible candidates under different disciplines will be announced after the interviews.  Students may consider staying back in Pune for two to three days more after the interviews, so that in the event of their selection, they may complete the counseling and selection of research guides. Counseling will be held on the next day after the interviews. Details of counseling will be announced at the time of the interviews. No TA/DA will be paid for attending the screening test and/or interview or at the time of joining.

The number of students to be selected in the areas of Physical, Chemical, Biological, and Engineering sciences will depend on the vacancies that will exist for each of the disciplines. 

Approximate no. of vacancies:  Will be announced later.


Important dates:
Last date for submitting applications online: May 18, 2012
Publication of the list of candidates called for Sreening test/Interviews: On or before May 31, 2012
Dates of Interview at CSIR-NCL: June 13 & 14, 2012
Counseling: June 15, 2012
Last date for joining for PhD at CSIR-NCL: July 14, 2012
Last date for registration for course work: July 21, 2012

Contact Details:
Student Academic Office
National Chemical Laboratory
Pune 411008

Click any of the following links to apply online.
Starting date for online application: April 25, 2012
Closing date for online application: May 18, 2012.




CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory

CSIR-National Chemical Laboratory (CSIR-NCL), a premier research laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)  is engaged in world class research in chemical, physical, biological and related sciences & engineering.  CSIR-NCL is a major knowledge based laboratory devoted to research.


CSIR-NCL trains a large number of PhD students in the chemical/physical/biological and allied disciplines. CSIR-NCL provides a vibrant academic atmosphere enabling inter-disciplinary and cross-disciplinary areas of research to flourish. Opportunities are available to do research in Theoretical and Computational Chemistry, Physical Chemistry, Materials Chemistry and Physics, Advanced Functional Materials, Materials for Solar Energy, Nanomaterials, Polymer Science & Engineering, Green Chemistry, Homogeneous and Heterogeneous Catalysis, Biochemistry, Molecular biology, Structural biology, Proteomics, Plant Tissue Culture, Organic Chemistry, Chemical Engineering, etc. CSIR-NCL subscribes to print and online versions of most of the important scientific journals. The research groups in CSIR-NCL are supported by several high quality resource centres e.g. High Performance Computing facilities, Centre for Materials Characterization, Central NMR facility, Catalyst Pilot Plant, Combi-chem-bio Resource Centre and Digital Information Resource Centre.  Apart from this, excellent facilities and equipments are available in individual research groups. CSIR-NCL has an active research program leading to Ph.D. degree in all the above mentioned areas.  It provides a stimulating atmosphere, which fosters creativity and encourages innovative thinking and research.

Academy of Scientific and Innovative Research (AcSIR)

The Academy of Scientific & Innovative Research (AcSIR) is established with a view to maximize the number of qualified researchers and professionals in the domain of science & engineering, who will be equipped with the skills of innovation and interdisciplinary integration. AcSIR is envisaged to emerge as a world class institution of national importance. The AcSIR would impart course instructions and award degrees in frontier areas of science and technology. The Academy will use the infrastructure facilities, scientific manpower and other resources of CSIR for teaching and research. Taking advantage of CSIR’s state of the art infrastructure and unique human resource, the AcSIR would work towards bridging the gap that exists today between academics and societal applications.

As part of the academic programme of AcSIR, students are required to undertake a project for 6-8 weeks, related to rural areas and the theme of the project should be related to the CSIR-800 programme. The aim of the project is to interact with people from rural areas, understand their problems and suggest ways for improvements in the areas of energy, education, environment, agriculture, health, food, water, etc. In addition, two project proposals  to be prepared by selecting topics of high relevance and novelty, and will have state-of-the art review, methodologies, recommendations  etc. One of the proposals can be related to a research topic leading to PhD and the second proposal in related areas. Students must pass a comprehensive examination designed to test the overall comprehension of the student in the various subjects.

For more information, visit the web site of AcSIR.

Research at CSIR-NCL

The research groups in CSIR-NCL are supported by several high quality resource centres e.g. High Performance Computing facilities, Centre for Materials Characterization, Central NMR facility, Catalyst Pilot Plant, Combi-chem-bio Resource Centre and Digital Information Resource Centre. 

Biological Sciences

The Biological Sciences research area has a distinguished history with many pioneering contributions. This is augmented by the privilege of leadership by some of the most renowned scientists in the field over six decades. This research area has spanned the period in which biology witnessed its most explosive growth and transformation into a modern subject area. To cop up with the extant demands of the society, the horizon has also broadened over the years, from biology to biotechnology. The track record of publications in high impact journals speaks about the quality of the Biological Sciences research. Major research areas are Microbial Technology, Human Disorders, Plant Biochemistry and Biotechnology.

Organic Chemistry

The major activities in the area of organic chemistry are particularly in the frontier areas of asymmetric synthesis, total synthesis of biologically-relevant natural products, enantioselective catalysis, and biomimetism, which have been clearly echoed in many of the gleaming publications, emanating from various research groups of the division in the last few years. Some of the notable contributions from selected research groups, provided below, would gauge the vibrant activity of this division. Prominent research areas of the organic chemistry division are total synthesis of a wide variety of biologically useful compounds and natural products, enantioselective catalysis to tackle formidable challenges in synthetic organic chemistry, development of synthetic oligonucleotides, development of unusual amino acids, chemistry-biology interface, applied organic chemistry, etc.

Physical Chemistry/Materials Science

The Physical and Materials Chemistry Division is engaged in multidisciplinary research ranging from basic research on chemistry and physics of materials, physical organic chemistry and theory and computational Chemistry to applied research like nano-materials for optoelectronic, magnetic and fuel cell applications. Some of the important research areas include,  Physical-Organic Chemistry, Molecular interactions, Functionalized carbon nano-structured materials,  Nanomaterials for electronic devices, solar photovoltaics,  Theory and Computational Chemistry,  Multi-scale modeling,  Molecular dynamics (MD) simulations,  Magnetic materials,  Nanomaterials,  Advanced functional materials,  Nano-bioconjugate, Electrochemistry,  Nano Materials for Fuel Cells,  Solar energy materials, NMR of materials, etc.

Catalysis

Research work in the homogeneous and heterogeneous catalysis divisions involves synthesis of novel catalytic materials for applications in various chemical transformations. With world-class expertise and facilities in synthesis, characterization, evaluation, and pilot-plant production of catalysts, the group is destined to develop globally competitive technologies with the prescript of sustainable chemistry. The group also undertakes bi-lateral and multi-lateral projects, student exchange, and faculty exchange programs between academic institutes spread across the world. Research activities in the division involves exploration of new methods for the synthesis of materials; development of new materials; functionalization of materials; Influence of various parameters on their properties (surface area, pore structures, catalysis); investigation on the nature of active sites responsible for the particular reaction; mechanistic study of reaction, etc. Demand-driven research is undertaken from various industrial partners to solve the problems faced in the present day processes; to secure our future for chemical, fuel and energy production from alternative resources/methods; photocatalysis for water splitting; catalysis for clean environment, etc.

Polymer Science & Engineering

The major theme of research in the area of Polymer Science & Engineering is to relate the methods of synthesis of organic macromolecules to the goals and objectives of material science. This involves synthesis of well defined macromolecular structures using several chemistries (radical, anionic, metal catalyzed polymerizations, step growth polymerizations) and study their structure, molecular and supra molecular properties with the ultimate objective of deriving structure-property relationships. The objectives are to explore synthesis of polymers with controlled molecular structures, sequences and morphology using a diverse range of chemistries, to examine the solution as well as the solid state properties of polymers, and to design monomers and polymers for specific end applications. Research competency in polymer chemistry and materials include polymer synthesis, solution characterization of polymers by GPC and light scattering, structure determination by solution and solid state NMR, thermal and dynamic mechanical analysis, study of crystallization phenomena, study of structure & morphology by X-ray diffraction, thermal analytical system and optical as well as scanning/transmission electron microscopy.

Chemical Engineering & Process Development

The Chemical Engineering and Process Development (CEPD) Division explores both fundamental and applied aspects of chemistry, biology and physics with a focus on research that will bring substantial benefits to society in terms of advancement of science, products and services in the marketplace. Scientists in CEPD Division come from different scientific and engineering backgrounds and have wide ranging R&D experience. They provide the right interdisciplinary knowledge-blend for carrying out coordinated research work in frontier areas. The R&D work has led to well equipped state-of-the-art laboratories with proper infrastructure satisfying safety norms. The Division undertakes well defined government R& D programmes as well as sponsored, collaborative, and consultancy projects with industries. It has a successful record of accomplishments that bring out solutions where none existed before. Various research activities of the division are: Modeling and simulation, Catalytic reactions and chemical kinetics, Green Chemistry and catalyst design for fine chemicals, Chiral chemistry for pharmaceuticals and synthesis of natural products, Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) in reaction, reactor and plant design, mixing, multiphase flows, multiphase reactors, process intensification, process engineering and scale-up, coal gasification and combustion, CO2 capture and utilization, granular suspension dynamics and formation of microstructures, and micro-reactor design for continuous flow synthesis, Surface and materials chemistry, Separation processes including reactive separations, Crystallization, Effluent treatment, Biochemical Engineering, and Bioinformatics.

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