Scopus publication support in Coimbatore

How many papers does each Coimbatore university want before the thesis, and in which journals?

The table below records what each institution’s own current document says. Where a column reads “not specified”, the document is silent. Ask your research office. Don’t assume.

Scholars often forget the conference half. Bharathiar and Avinashilingam each want two presentations on top of the two papers, with certificates or reprints as proof. Karunya narrows the venue. It wants international conferences run by institutions of national importance or other premier institutions. So a talk at a local college seminar may not satisfy Karunya, even though Bharathiar would accept it.

Anna University’s list and its removal circulars are explained in our guide to the Anna University journal annexures. The rest of this page is about the other five.

What proof of publication does Bharathiar University ask for at the synopsis?

Clause 18.2 of the Ph.D. Regulations 2025–26 makes the Certificate of Genuineness of Research Publication the gatekeeper. Your supervisor fills in the journal’s name, volume, number, pages, year and publisher. The supervisor also certifies that the article holds part of the results in your thesis. Then the head of department or director countersigns. The opening page of the printed article must be attached to this certificate. Without it, the Research Section won’t accept the synopsis. The CRE synopsis checklist repeats that point as two separate items.

Two details are worth thinking about early:

• “Peer-reviewed refereed” is not a blank cheque. The regulations let a peer-reviewed journal stand in for an indexed one. But the Doctoral Committee must then certify the quality of your publications before the thesis is processed. A journal with a thin review process is where that certificate gets hard. A journal whose Scopus or Web of Science coverage you can show on screen is the safer choice.
• Accepted is enough for the synopsis, but the form wants page numbers. You can file the synopsis on the strength of accepted papers. Yet the certificate asks for volume, number and pages. Ask CRE how it wants an accepted paper recorded before you rely on one.

The university checks the same two papers and two presentations again before it issues a compliance certificate to a PhD awardee. The rest of Bharathiar’s process is in our Bharathiar admission guide.

Why is a Scopus listing not enough for TNAU and Amrita scholars?

TNAU measures journals by NAAS score. The PG Rules and Regulations 2025 set the rule in section 22.2. (The SPGS page links the file.) A Scopus or Science Citation Index journal counts only if it also carries a NAAS rating of 6.0 or above. And the journal must not appear on the UGC predatory list. Papers in predatory or pseudo journals “will not be considered at any cost”. The authorship pattern is fixed as well. You are first author. Your advisory committee chairperson is corresponding author, or the principal investigator of the scheme if you work on a funded project. The committee members are co-authors. Since the chairperson deals with the journal, the submission usually goes out from their account. Admission and the programme itself are described in our guide to agriculture PhDs in Coimbatore.

Amrita measures journals by quartile. Its 2024 PhD policy defines Q1 as the 75th percentile and above, and Q2 as the 50th to 75th. Both are checked “exclusively” through Scopus. Every journal paper must fall in Q1 or Q2. So a Q3 journal that is fully indexed in Scopus does not count. A few other rules in the policy change how you plan:

• Papers in the thesis must have the thesis advisor as co-author and you as primary author.
• The author affiliation follows a set format: department or centre, school and campus name, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, India.
• When several scholars share a paper, the advisor records each one’s percentage on the Publication Tracking Portal. Your requirement then rises above three papers.
• At least one manuscript with an international co-author is strongly recommended.
• Scholars in English and Amrita Darshanam may publish in UGC-CARE journals instead.

Our guide to Scopus indexing shows where a journal’s percentile is displayed.

What happens to a Coimbatore scholar’s paper if the journal is cloned, retracted or dropped from a list?

Each university has written its answer down. None of them is kind to the scholar.

• Amrita: a paper is not credited if Scopus, Web of Science or PubMed has blacklisted or retracted it by the time you submit the thesis. The policy tells you to avoid predatory and unreliable outlets.
• TNAU: a predatory or pseudo journal is not counted, whatever its claims.
• Anna University centres: R2025 clause 17.2 ignores papers retracted while the thesis is being scrutinised. Then there’s the Centre for Research’s fake-journals circular of 21 October 2022. It warns that a counterfeit site can copy a genuine journal’s name, ISSN and logo. Papers in such copies will be rejected. Lists also shrink. A circular of 30 September 2022 removed five journals, among them Springer’s Wireless Personal Communications, and set a cut-off date for papers already accepted in them.
• Avinashilingam: its rule names UGC-CARE Group I and II. But the UGC-CARE website now says the list was last updated in October 2024 and will get no further updates. That follows a UGC public notice of 11 February 2025. Ask the Institute how it treats journals that couldn’t have been added after that date. Our UGC-CARE explainer covers the national background.

A cloned site usually gives itself away through its web address, its contact details or a promise of very fast publication. Our guide to spotting predatory journals walks through the checks.

Working with us from Coimbatore

We begin with a video call about your paper, your stage and the rule your university applies. Then we check every journal on the shortlist two ways. One is live on Scopus Sources. The other is your own university’s yardstick. If you’re at TNAU, that’s the journal’s current NAAS score. At Amrita it’s the Scopus percentile in your subject category, and at Karunya it’s Scopus or Web of Science coverage. At Avinashilingam we look up the UGC-CARE group. And for a Bharathiar scholar, we want indexing strong enough that your Doctoral Committee will sign the quality certificate without hesitation.

Timing follows your milestones, not a generic deadline. Amrita scholars need papers in hand before the qualifying examination and each open seminar. A TNAU scholar needs one paper published and a second accepted before the thesis goes to examiners. So your second manuscript should be under review well before the final semester. Bharathiar and Karunya take accepted papers at the synopsis. That gives a little more room, but review still takes months.

Your chairperson or advisor may have to be corresponding author, as at TNAU. If so, we prepare the submission pack so they can submit it from their own account. Every draft comes back to you by email with tracked changes and a similarity report.