VTU PhD thesis format

Which documents apply, and how VTU’s PhD is structured

There are four VTU documents you should keep with you while writing the thesis.

• THESIS FORMAT (circular of 15 July 2025). This one fixes the page order, the cover wording, the certificate and both the declarations. VTU has said theses not in this format will be fined, so treat it as compulsory.
• Guidelines for the preparation of Ph.D./M.Sc.(Engg.) Thesis. VTU put this one on its website back in 2019. Paper size, spacing and margins come from this file only, and font sizes and numbering too. It looks written for project reports, as it keeps saying “report” and “project”. But nothing has replaced it, so its figures are still the only official layout rules.
• PhD Regulations 2023. Coursework, milestones, the synopsis, publications, adjudication and the INFLIBNET deposit are covered in these.
• Thesis checklist (March 2026). At submission, the Registrar (Evaluation) checks your thesis against this list. The current publication rule is also given in it.

The VTU milestones

VTU divides the PhD into parts. Part I is coursework of minimum 12 credits. Research and Publication Ethics and Research Methodology are part of it, and you need 55% to pass. In Part II you face a Comprehensive Viva-Voce. Part III has two Open Seminars, along with your publications. Part IV is the Pre-Submission Colloquium, and only after that you move to the synopsis and the thesis. Your Research Advisory Committee, which older rules and forms name as the Doctoral Committee, keeps watch on each stage. Plan the thesis around these milestones, as the synopsis cannot go in till the colloquium is cleared.

Order of pages (2025 template)

In the 2025 template the first four pages carry roman numerals I to IV, and the remaining pages follow in the sequence shown in the table. Two things differ from most universities. The acknowledgement is placed before the abstract. Also the publications list, with front page of each paper, is placed before the references.

Cite this data: PhD Desk, “VTU PhD thesis format”, last reviewed 1 November 2026, https://phddesk.in/guides/thesis-format-vtu

The older guideline has its own order, which is title page, abstract, acknowledgements and contents. In that guideline the abstract can be 1,000 words at most. When the two documents clash, go with the 2025 template, since it is the newer one and the fine is attached to it. Since the template is silent on abstract length, we think 1,000 words is okay to keep.

Page layout and typography

The figures below are taken from VTU’s thesis preparation guideline.

• Paper: A4 size bond paper (210 × 297 mm).
• Spacing: line spacing of 1.5.
• Margins: 1.25 inches on the left, 1 inch on the right, and 0.75 inches at top and bottom. Margins at many Indian universities are wider, and Word keeps its own defaults, so open page setup once and see.
• Font sizes: body text in 12. “CHAPTER” and its number in 16, left-aligned. The chapter title in 18, centred. Section numbers and headings in 16, and sub-section numbers and headings in 14.
• Page numbers: front matter takes roman numerals, and arabic numerals start from Chapter 1. In the 2025 template the numbers are shown at the bottom centre.
• Printing: as per the guideline, print on one side of the paper. On printing sides the 2025 template is silent, so ask your Research Centre whether the hard copy they send has to be one-sided.
• Software: LaTeX and Word are both fine.

The guideline does not name any typeface for the thesis body. VTU’s synopsis format uses Times New Roman, and you will see it in most VTU theses also. But it is only habit, VTU has not written it as a rule.

Making the PDF

The 2026 checklist is clear here. Use Microsoft’s “Print to PDF” option only, and keep away from free online converter websites. Those sites many times shift fonts and layout, and your unpublished thesis sits on an unknown server.

Headings, tables, figures and equations

• Headings follow decimal numbering, like Chapter 2, then sections 2.1 and 2.2, and sub-sections 2.2.1 and 2.5.1.
• Tables and figures get chapter-wise numbers, for example “Fig 2.1 Block diagram of a serial binary adder” or “Table 3.1 Primitive flow table”. Place each one on the page where you first mention it, or else on the next page. Top or bottom of the page is preferred. Whether captions go above or below, the guideline does not say. In engineering the usual practice is table captions above and figure captions below.
• Equations: follow SI units in the whole thesis. For important equations VTU wants a chapter-wise number like (3.2), kept at the right side of the line.
• The last chapter gives a summary of the work, what you contributed and where it can be used, and the scope for further work. The 2025 template has its own “Conclusions and Future Works” section after the chapters as well.
• Hardware and software work: for a hardware thesis, component layouts and data sheets go in an appendix. A software thesis should come with a virus-free disc and a readme file.

References and the publications list

VTU follows a numbered reference system. As per the guideline, references are “numbered serially in the order of their occurrence in the text”, and the numbers go in square brackets. It is very near to IEEE style. Most engineering scholars already use it in their papers, so there is mostly little to convert. How to shorten journal names or cite a conference paper or website, VTU does not say, so use our IEEE formatting guide for that.

Your own papers are listed separately in a publications list. It comes before the references and carries the front page of each published paper. Along with this you submit a Certificate of Genuineness of the Publication, and the current format is dated January 2026. In this certificate you state that the content of the paper is part of your thesis. A paper on a side topic cannot be counted, even in a good journal.

The publication requirement

This rule has changed a few times, so go by the checklist for your batch.

• As per the 2023 regulations, you need minimum two papers in UGC CARE, Scopus, SCI or Web of Science journals before the pre-submission colloquium.
• The 2026 checklist asks scholars in recent USN batches for one paper in a Q1 to Q3 Scopus-indexed journal. Scholars from earlier batches can meet the rule another way, with two UGC CARE papers or two Scopus, SCI or Web of Science papers.
• Both your name and your guide’s name have to be on the papers, and the Doctoral Committee has to sign them.

You can see quartiles on Scopus-derived sources, but they may change from one year to the next. Look up the journal’s present status before sending, our Scopus indexing guide shows how.

VTU’s plagiarism limit: 25% or 10%

On plagiarism, VTU’s own documents disagree more than anywhere else. The anti-plagiarism procedure on VTU’s PhD formats page gives a permitted similarity index of 25% or less. If you go above that, you have to resubmit with a fee, and the second time the fee is higher. The PhD Manual 2024 gives 10% or less, after excluding the bibliography, index and references. The 2023 regulations give no percentage at all. They only refer to separate VTU academic-integrity regulations and allow three attempts.

Bring the chapters down to 10% or less, then both VTU figures and the UGC’s Level 0 are satisfied. The anti-plagiarism report gets bound into the thesis. VTU will start the plagiarism check only once your complete final thesis is uploaded and the hard copy reaches them, as per the 2026 checklist. The synopsis also needs a plagiarism report, which you get at your Research Centre. How the levels and exclusions work is explained in our plagiarism limits guide.

Synopsis, copies and INFLIBNET

Synopsis

You get up to three attempts at the Pre-Submission Colloquium, and each attempt has to be within three months. After the colloquium, submit a synopsis in English in VTU’s standard format, minimum three months before the thesis. In the synopsis format the font is Times New Roman. The title is 18 bold, headings are 16 and 14, and body text is 12. Inside the synopsis you write Introduction and Problem Statement first, then Literature Survey and Objective, after that Methodology and Outcome, and you close with Summary and References. There is a “long synopsis” also in the 2026 checklist, and that one goes chapter by chapter. VTU has not fixed any page or word limit for either of them.

Thesis submission and copies

Submission is mostly online now. You upload the thesis on VTU’s evaluation portal, and VTU sends soft copies to the adjudicators. On hard copies, though, the documents do not match. The annexures of the 2023 regulations ask for two hard copies and a PDF on CD. As per the 2026 checklist one hard copy of the synopsis is needed, and VTU begins checking the thesis after its hard copy comes in. Then the PhD Manual says hard copies of the final thesis are no longer accepted. Department and guide copies are still made in “plastic cover” binding with white inner title page, as the older guideline says. Check with the Registrar (Evaluation) how many copies your submission needs, and in which binding. No cover colour has been specified by VTU.

Adjudication and the viva

You have to propose a panel of twelve examiners, six under Group A and six under Group B. The Vice-Chancellor selects one from each group, and their reports are due within 45 days. Once the viva is over, upload the corrected thesis along with a table of corrections. After that, one hard copy of it goes to the Registrar (Evaluation).

Shodhganga

The 2023 regulations say the Registrar (Evaluation) deposits the final corrected thesis with INFLIBNET. So you need not upload it on Shodhganga yourself. Copyright in the thesis is held by VTU. The file you upload after corrections is what goes to INFLIBNET, so read every page before uploading.

Pre-submission checklist

Before printing, go through this list once. Two VTU documents differ on some point? Clear your doubts at the Research Centre itself.

• The pages are in the exact order of the July 2025 VTU THESIS FORMAT, that is cover, certificate, supervisor declaration, scholar declaration, and after that acknowledgement, abstract and index. The template warns that VTU will fine theses which don’t follow this order.
• Your USN, the guide and co-guide, and the Research Centre details are printed on the cover, and the cover has a border.
• The certificate is on Research Centre letterhead. It carries seals and signatures of the co-guide, guide, Head of the Research Centre and Head of the Institution.
• You used A4 paper and 1.5 spacing, with margins of 1.25″ left, 1″ right and 0.75″ for top and bottom, as given in the thesis guideline VTU has published.
• Font sizes are body 12, chapter number 16, chapter title 18 and centred, section headings 16 and sub-section headings 14.
• Equation numbers like (3.2) go chapter-wise at the right side, and SI units are used from the first chapter to the last.
• References are numbered in the order they are cited, and in the text the numbers sit in square brackets.
• Your publications list has the front page of every published paper. The Genuineness Certificate in the January 2026 format is signed.
• Your paper satisfies the publication rule given in the current checklist for your USN batch.
• You made the PDF using Microsoft Print to PDF and not with any online converter.
• The similarity report is generated and bound in, and the figure is under the threshold your Research Centre follows (see the plagiarism section).
• Synopsis title and thesis title are the same, and the synopsis is prepared in VTU’s synopsis format.

Common mistakes

• Using a senior’s pre-2025 thesis as a model. With the 2025 template the page order changed, and the supervisor’s declaration was newly added.
• Putting the abstract before the acknowledgement, or putting the references before the publications list. In both cases VTU wants it the opposite way.
• Leaving the margins as Word or the template gave them. For VTU you need 1.25″ on the left, 1″ on the right, and 0.75″ at top and bottom.
• Thinking 25% similarity will pass anyway. The PhD Manual 2024 says 10%. At 10% either threshold gets met.
• Using an old publication rule. Present batches need a Q1–Q3 Scopus paper, and what the paper contains has to be part of the thesis.
• Converting to PDF with an online tool, which is not allowed as per the checklist.

Do you want your layout, numbering and references checked against VTU’s documents before you submit? A format pass is part of our thesis editing and proofreading service. We touch only the presentation, the research stays yours.