PhD in social sciences in Mumbai

Deonar, Goregaon, Kalina or Powai: which Mumbai campus fits your discipline?

Begin with your subject. The name of the institute comes later. Every campus is strong only in a few areas.

Take the programme lists as a rough guide. If you work on social work, urban and housing questions, gender, disasters or labour, TISS is the natural place to look. Research on fertility, mortality, migration or health surveys goes mostly to IIPS. For quantitative economics and energy policy, IGIDR is the match. Some scholars want a department near home and would rather write the PET than depend on NET. For them the University of Mumbai and SNDT are the options.

IIT Bombay is a separate case. Its Humanities and Social Sciences department wants a master’s in the humanities or social sciences with 55% marks (50% for SC/ST). Along with the application you send a statement of purpose and a research proposal. As per the 2026–27 brochure, psychology, sociology and English literature were open only for the autumn 2026 intake. Philosophy, history and linguistics took applicants in both semesters. Economics is a different department there, and it asks for 55% in an M.A. in economics. For its Teaching Assistantship you need a GATE score or a CSIR, UGC, ICSSR or ICPR qualification. If management and labour is your area, we have compared TISS with the business schools on our PhD in management in Mumbai page.

How does TISS choose PhD scholars now that everything runs on UGC-NET?

NET marks decide most of it. Each programme page in the TISS PhD list accepts applicants from the three UGC-NET categories only. So you need either a JRF not older than three years, or a NET result for PhD admission (with or without assistant professorship) not older than one year. From these applicants TISS calls five per seat for an online interview, and the shortlist is made on NET marks and the Government of India reservation rules. For JRF holders only the interview is counted. For everyone else TISS makes a composite score, with NET carrying seven parts and the interview three parts. You also upload a concept note of minimum 2,000 words, and the panel will mostly discuss about this note in the interview.

For the Mumbai campus, the listed intakes were like this. Social Work had 20 seats and Habitat Studies had 14. Development Studies and Management and Labour Studies had 10 each. Women’s Studies, run by the Advanced Centre for Women’s Studies, had 6, and Disaster Studies had 3. Each programme also names its research themes quite specifically. Habitat Studies lists urban informality, affordable housing, coastal management and climate adaptation. In Social Work the themes are displacement and rehabilitation, informal labour and tribal areas. Development Studies mentions inequality, fiscal federalism and how education and health are financed.

In 2025–26 the whole round finished quickly. The last date for applications was 5 January 2026, interviews went on from 16 to 23 January, and coursework classes began on 10 February. The TISS PhD is full-time, and you sign daily attendance register in the Doctoral Students’ Office. Later, if you get a job, you can request to convert to part-time mode. For general-category scholars on the Mumbai campus, the first-year fee in 2025–26 was ₹66,500. Out of this, ₹10,000 was a caution deposit which comes back to you.

What does IIPS ask of a population-studies PhD applicant?

A recent NET, and an age limit. The International Institute for Population Sciences has been a deemed university since 1985 and comes under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It wants UGC or CSIR NET cleared in 2024 or later. The NET subject can be population studies, anthropology, economics, geography, psychology, political science, social work or sociology. Mathematics, statistics, and social medicine and community health are also accepted. The 2025–26 admission bulletin says it very clearly. Anyone who cleared only NET before 2024 cannot apply. About age, you should not be above 30 as on 30 June 2025 as per that bulletin, and reserved categories get some relaxation on this.

For full-time seats, IIPS goes by the number of Government of India fellowships lying vacant on the date of the advertisement. Selection is done the same way as at TISS next door. JRF holders are taken on interview only, and for others it is 70% NET score and 30% interview. Every admitted scholar then does eight months of pre-PhD coursework.

Now coming to the fellowship, the biggest attraction at IIPS. For the first two years it pays ₹37,000 monthly, and ₹42,000 in the third and fourth years. On top of that there is a contingency grant of ₹10,000 a year for the first two years and ₹20,500 for the third and fourth years. (There is one small mismatch in the bulletin. Its general notes mention the ₹20,500 for the third year only, but the programme section gives the informations for both third and fourth.) The PhD itself can take three to six years. The bulletin points out that this period is for thesis submission and is not the fellowship period.

IIPS also has two part-time seats, without fellowship. These are for people with at least five years of work experience after their highest degree. The NET rule is the same for them. Part-timers have no age limit at all, only they must get a NOC from the employer. Other part-time routes in the city are compared in our guide to part-time PhDs in Mumbai.

Why does IGIDR insist on a JRF or GATE score and school mathematics?

Mainly because the programme teaches economics with a lot of mathematics, and also IGIDR is paying every scholar its own stipend. The institute was set up by the Reserve Bank of India in 1987 and is a deemed university. As per its 2026–27 PhD prospectus, your UGC-JRF, CSIR-JRF or GATE score must be valid on the last date of application. Mathematics at the higher secondary level is also needed. NIOS mathematics is accepted, and so is mathematics studied as part of an eligible bachelor’s degree.

Marks also matter. In Development Studies, master’s degree holders in economics, statistics, operations research, development studies, physics, mathematics or management need 55%. If you have a four-year BA, BSc, BStat, BE or BTech, the requirement is 60%. For 2026–27 the seats were nine in Economics, two in Development Studies and four in Energy, Environment and Climate Change. Applications for that year started on 13 April 2026. Those who got shortlisted had to come to the campus for interview.

Coursework takes two years before you register for the PhD. You complete 64 credits of core and elective courses in Economics or Development Studies, or 70 credits in the energy programme. After that you have to clear a proposal evaluation and a qualifying exam. The prospectus gives the money details as below.

• a stipend of ₹37,000 a month in the first year, then ₹42,000 from the second year till PhD registration, and ₹47,000 after registration in the third year. From the second year you are expected to do some part-time teaching or research work.
• funding for conferences, and support to spend up to six months at a university abroad, as per institute rules.
• on the cost side, tuition is ₹27,040 per semester and the security deposit is ₹20,000. You also pay a group medical insurance premium, and the hostel fee is 8% of your monthly stipend plus water and electricity charges.

If you have a JRF in economics and you are comfortable with the mathematics, you should apply. No stipend on this page is higher than IGIDR’s, and since it comes with the seat, you don’t need your own fellowship for it. Still, Development Studies has only two seats, so keep an application going at TISS or the University of Mumbai also.

How do University of Mumbai departments and SNDT admit social scientists?

At the University of Mumbai there is no common PhD admission, and every department puts up its own short notice when it has seats. The pattern comes from the university’s PhD regulations of January 2026. A research centre puts out its vacancies and keeps applications open for around ten days. After that it interviews candidates before a Departmental Research Committee. This is done at most two times in a year. For candidates exempted from the entrance test (NET, SET, M.Phil. and similar), seats cannot be more than 40%. That rule is R.PhD.6. When your master’s is in some other subject, the centre will first give you an aptitude test, under R.PhD.7(8).

Just go through two of the recent notices once and you will get the idea of the process. One came from the Mumbai School of Economics and Public Policy (2025–26 winter notification, dated 2 April 2026). It invited online applications for a PhD in economics from 2 to 11 April. Eligibility was PET, NET, SET or GATE in economics, public policy, development studies or statistics, or an M.Phil. Along with the form, they asked for a two-page note on what you want to research. The other notice was from the Department of Civics and Politics. Its applications ran from 26 September to 8 October 2025, and interviews were held on 13 October. Candidates from another discipline first had to clear its faculty-change exam.

Under the 2026–27 fee circular, a Humanities PhD at the university costs ₹23,091, and ₹800 out of that is refundable. When you reach the thesis stage, go through our guide to the Mumbai University thesis rules.

SNDT Women’s University takes only women. Admissions are into departments at its Churchgate and Juhu campuses and into recognised centres. The 2025 entrance test was conducted online on 3 July 2025. It had two 50-mark papers, research methodology and the subject. The pass mark was 50% in each paper, and reserved categories needed 45%. After the test came an interview, and the pass mark for it was the same. NET, SET, JRF and M.Phil. holders are exempted from the test, but they still have to face the interview.

Neither of these two universities promises funding along with the seat. If you belong to a community covered by BARTI, SARTHI, MAHAJYOTI or TRTI, go through our Maharashtra fellowships guide as soon as you get admission.