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How do I find a potential PhD supervisor who works in my area?

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Growing 70 pts 0 followers
PES University · Posted
IoT & Embedded Systems Marketing & Consumer Behaviour

What I need help with

I am preparing my first SERB Core Research Grant proposal. My research area is structural health monitoring using IoT sensors.

Specific questions:

  1. What is the typical review timeline.how many months between submission and decision?
  2. Is the budget justification section as important as the technical merit section?
  3. Should I include international collaborators or is that a distraction for a first application?
  4. What is the realistic success rate for first-time applicants?

I am applying as an Assistant Professor with 2 years of post-PhD experience and 6 publications.

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17 Replies

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Zara Hussain Growing 55 pts · Accepted answer

FDR (Benjamini-Hochberg) is widely accepted and preferable to Bonferroni when you have many tests and limited power. The key is to be explicit about which correction you used and why.

On replication: No independent cohort is a genuine limitation but not a dealbreaker for rare disease research, where cohort availability is a known constraint. Many high-quality papers acknowledge this and still get published in good journals. Frame it as future work.

Power analysis: Yes, report it. Showing you are aware of the limitation is better than not mentioning it.

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Nandita Ghosh Distinguished 720 pts · Accepted answer

For longitudinal data with missing values, mixed-effects models handle this more gracefully than imputation in most cases.

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Vikram Bhatia Active 420 pts · Accepted answer

I think you are conflating two separate problems here. The publish-or-perish culture creates pressure, yes.but the solution is not to criticize researchers who are navigating an unfair system. The real problem is with evaluation committees who treat publication count as a proxy for research quality. Fix the evaluation, and the incentives change.

Also worth noting: open review has been implemented in some fields and has its own problems. It can disadvantage early-career researchers who fear retaliation from senior colleagues they have reviewed critically.

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Lakshmi Devi Growing 75 pts · Accepted answer

Seconding the recommendation for Zotero. Game changer for managing references across multiple projects.

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Disha Malhotra Starting 8 pts · Accepted answer

Check whether your institution has a Springer/Elsevier waiver agreement.many NITs and IITs do.

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Disha Malhotra Starting 8 pts · Accepted answer

The Fulbright SoP is very different from a typical PhD SoP. It needs to focus on cultural exchange and diplomacy, not just research.

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Rajesh Kumar · Accepted answer

For longitudinal data with missing values, mixed-effects models handle this more gracefully than imputation in most cases.

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Replying to Rajesh Kumar
Divya Krishnan Growing 85 pts · Accepted answer

Open access is the right direction but the APCs are prohibitively expensive for many Indian researchers without institutional funding.

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Replying to Rajesh Kumar
Neha Agarwal Growing 90 pts · Accepted answer

Open access is the right direction but the APCs are prohibitively expensive for many Indian researchers without institutional funding.

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Replying to Rajesh Kumar
Bhavana Reddy Starting 30 pts · Accepted answer

I found that writing a paper abstract first (before the paper) and then reverse-engineering the paper from the abstract helped with clarity enormously.

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Indira Balan · Accepted answer

I think you are conflating two separate problems here. The publish-or-perish culture creates pressure, yes.but the solution is not to criticize researchers who are navigating an unfair system. The real problem is with evaluation committees who treat publication count as a proxy for research quality. Fix the evaluation, and the incentives change.

Also worth noting: open review has been implemented in some fields and has its own problems. It can disadvantage early-career researchers who fear retaliation from senior colleagues they have reviewed critically.

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Lakshmi Devi Growing 75 pts · Accepted answer

Seconding the recommendation for Zotero. Game changer for managing references across multiple projects.

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Replying to Lakshmi Devi
Hema Suresh Starting 20 pts · Accepted answer

Much appreciated. I will restructure my proposal along these lines. The point about societal impact being substantive is something I would have gotten wrong.

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Replying to Lakshmi Devi
Sanjay Kumar Growing 145 pts · Accepted answer

The Fulbright SoP is very different from a typical PhD SoP. It needs to focus on cultural exchange and diplomacy, not just research.

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Meghana Rao Growing 170 pts · Accepted answer

As a senior faculty member (25 years in the system), I want to offer a different perspective. Yes, the pressures are real. But I have also seen the other side: students who produce excellent work, publish honestly, and build reputations over time. The system is imperfect but not entirely broken.

What has actually helped my students: choosing venues carefully (a few strong papers rather than many weak ones), developing genuine collaborations rather than transactional coauthorships.

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Farhan Mirza · Accepted answer

I'd push back slightly on the idea that industry collaboration is universally beneficial for academic research. The incentive misalignment is real.

Industry partners want deliverables on a schedule. Academic research is often exploratory and unpredictable. When the two clash, it is usually the researcher who has to compromise.either by rushing results, constraining publication, or steering away from results that are inconvenient for the sponsor.

This doesn't mean industry collaboration is bad. But the terms matter enormously. IP rights, publication rights, and the ability to pursue negative results should be negotiated upfront and protected in writing.

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Indira Balan · Accepted answer

Strongly agree with the point about choosing venues carefully. One paper in NeurIPS > five papers in obscure workshops.