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).
Daily writing prompt
What’s a moment that made you realize you were stronger than you thought?
