There is no specific UGC, AICTE, IIT, or NIT rule that mandates:
“PhD scholar must be first author, supervisor second author, then others.”
In India, authorship order is generally governed by:
- the discipline’s academic convention,
- the journal/conference policy, and
- the actual contribution of each author.
However, across most engineering, planning, science, and management fields in India (including many IITs/NITs), the common academic practice is:
- PhD scholar / primary researcher → First Author
- Supervisor / Guide → Second Author or Last Author (often corresponding author)
- Other contributors/co-supervisors → subsequent authors
This convention is widely followed because the student usually:
- performs most of the research,
- data collection/analysis,
- manuscript drafting.
The supervisor contributes through:
- conceptual guidance,
- review,
- funding/lab support,
- revisions,
- research direction.
Many institutions also follow international ethics frameworks such as:
- ICMJE authorship guidelines
- COPE (Committee on Publication Ethics)
These state that author order should reflect substantial intellectual contribution, not designation or hierarchy.
Some important practical conventions:
- In many IITs/NITs:
- Student = first author
- Supervisor = corresponding/last author
- In some labs, supervisor may appear last because the last author is treated as the “senior supervising author.”
- Co-first authorship is also possible if two researchers contributed equally.
- Merely being a supervisor does not automatically justify first authorship under publication ethics.
A strong statement often used in institutional research ethics is:
Students should normally be the first author on publications arising primarily from their thesis/dissertation work.
So, while there is no formal national rule, the ethically accepted and academically recognized norm for thesis-based papers is usually:
PhD Scholar (First Author) → Supervisor (Second/Last/Corresponding Author).
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