In Indian universities the three words mark three different degree levels, not three writing styles. A project report documents work done for a Bachelor’s or a taught Master’s. A dissertation is the research document of a Master’s programme such as M.Tech, M.E. or M.Sc. A thesis is the doctoral document submitted for a Ph.D. and evaluated by external examiners.
That is the convention. What actually governs you is your university’s ordinance, because the UGC regulates the Ph.D. thesis in detail and leaves almost everything below it to the institution. Below is what is fixed nationally, what varies, and how to tell which set of rules your document falls under.
What does each word mean in an Indian university?
| Document | Degree level | Typical length | Who evaluates it | Governed by |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Project report | B.Tech, B.E., BBA, BCA, B.Com and most taught PG programmes (MBA, MCA) | Roughly 40–80 pages | Internal guide plus an internal or visiting external examiner, usually with a viva at the department | Institutional ordinance and the affiliating university’s scheme of examination |
| Dissertation | M.Tech, M.E., M.Sc, M.A. and other research-bearing Master’s programmes | Roughly 60–120 pages | Internal guide plus an external examiner appointed by the university | Institutional ordinance; no national research regulation applies |
| Thesis | Ph.D. | Commonly 150–300 pages | Research Supervisor plus at least two external examiners, followed by an open viva voce | UGC (Minimum Standards and Procedure for Award of Ph.D. Degree) Regulations, 2022, plus the institution’s ordinance |
The lengths in that table are conventions observed across Indian departments, not regulated figures. No UGC regulation states a page count for any of the three. If a page range appears in your handbook, it came from your own research board.
Is an M.Phil. dissertation still an option?
No. The UGC Ph.D. Regulations, 2022 state plainly that “Higher Educational Institutions shall not offer the M.Phil. (Master of Philosophy) programme.” The same regulations preserve what already existed: “Nothing in these Regulations shall impact the M.Phil. degree programmes commencing prior to the enactment of these Regulations.”
This matters for two reasons. If you are reading an older guide that describes the M.Phil. dissertation as the standard step before a doctorate, that route no longer exists for new entrants. And if you hold an M.Phil. awarded earlier, it remains a recognised qualification — the 2022 regulations set out a separate admission eligibility route for candidates who completed an M.Phil. with at least 55% marks in aggregate.
What actually separates a dissertation from a thesis?
Not length, and not effort. Three things separate them, and every one of them is a rule rather than a matter of taste.
The contribution required. A Master’s dissertation is expected to apply an established method competently to a defined problem. A doctoral thesis is expected to make an original contribution to knowledge. That is why an M.Tech dissertation can legitimately replicate an existing technique on a new dataset while a thesis usually cannot — the standard our guide to writing an M.Tech dissertation report sets out is an engineering argument, not a miniature Ph.D.
Who judges it. Under Regulation 11 of the 2022 Regulations, a Ph.D. thesis “shall be evaluated by his/her Research Supervisor and at least two external examiners who are experts in the field and not in employment of the Higher Educational Institution concerned”, and “wherever possible, one of the external examiners should be chosen from outside India”. A Master’s dissertation is typically read by one external examiner appointed under the university’s own scheme. The gap in scrutiny is the real difference.
What happens on rejection. If one external examiner recommends rejecting a thesis, the institution must send it to an alternate examiner from the approved panel, and the viva is held only if that examiner recommends acceptance. If the alternate also declines, the thesis is rejected and the scholar is declared ineligible for the award. There is no equivalent national safety net or national penalty for a dissertation; the department decides.
Who examines each document, and when?
For a Ph.D., the sequence is fixed by regulation. Before submitting, the scholar makes a presentation before the Research Advisory Committee, open to faculty members and other research scholars. The thesis then goes for evaluation. The viva-voce board consists of the Research Supervisor and at least one of the two external examiners, may be conducted online, and is open to the Research Advisory Committee, faculty, scholars and students. The whole evaluation, including the declaration of the viva result, must finish within six months of submission — the process our article on what happens in a PhD viva voce in India walks through stage by stage.
For a dissertation or a project report, none of that is nationally prescribed. Departments commonly run an internal presentation, a report submission and a viva in the same week, and the panel is often two internal faculty plus one external examiner. Ask your department for its examination scheme in writing; it is the only document that binds them.
Which of the three goes to Shodhganga?
Only the Ph.D. thesis is covered by a national deposit obligation. The 2022 Regulations require that “following the successful completion of the evaluation process and before the announcement of the award of the Ph.D. degree(s), the Higher Educational Institution concerned shall submit an electronic copy of the Ph.D. thesis to INFLIBNET, for hosting the same so as to make it accessible to all the Higher Educational Institutions and research institutions.”
Note the timing: the deposit happens before the award is announced, not afterwards, and it is the institution’s duty rather than yours. Our guide to what Shodhganga is and whether your thesis will be uploaded there covers what the repository does with it once it arrives.
Master’s dissertations and project reports fall outside that clause entirely. Some institutions archive them in their own institutional repository and some do not. If you want your dissertation to be discoverable, that is a request to make to your library, not a right.
Do the plagiarism rules differ by document?
The similarity thresholds themselves come from the UGC’s 2018 integrity regulations and are set out in our explainer on the UGC plagiarism limit for a PhD thesis. What varies between the three documents is not the percentage but the machinery around it.
For a Ph.D., the 2022 Regulations require the institution to run detection software, and they require you to submit, alongside the thesis, “(a) an undertaking from the Ph.D. scholar that there is no plagiarism and (b) a certificate from the Research Supervisor attesting to the originality of the thesis and that the thesis has not been submitted for the award of any other degree/diploma to any other Higher Educational Institution.”
For a dissertation or a project report, whether the document is screened at all, at what stage, and against which threshold, is decided by your department. Many run the same check; some run it only on a sample; a few run it after submission when it is too late to act. Find out which, early, because the remedy is cheap before submission and expensive after.
Does “dissertation” mean the same thing outside India?
No, and this trips up scholars who download templates from foreign university websites. India follows the British convention: dissertation is the Master’s document, thesis is the doctoral one. In the United States the two are commonly reversed, with “thesis” naming the Master’s document and “dissertation” the doctoral one. South African universities follow the British pattern as India does.
The practical consequence is that a “dissertation formatting guide” from a US university is describing a Master’s document, while an Indian ordinance using the same word may be describing something else entirely. Match the guide to the degree level, never to the word.
What if your ordinance uses a different word?
Your ordinance wins. Indian universities use these labels inconsistently, and several use “thesis” for an M.Tech submission or “dissertation” for a doctoral one. None of that changes the regulation that applies — the 2022 Regulations bind the Ph.D. programme regardless of what the document is called locally, and they bind nothing else.
The test to apply is simple: ask which degree the document is submitted for. If it is a Ph.D., the national rules on supervision, evaluation, examiners, the six-month clock and INFLIBNET deposit apply to you. If it is anything else, your institution’s own scheme of examination is the whole of the law, and you should be reading that rather than a national regulation.
Which one are you writing?
Work down this list and stop at the first one that fits.
- Are you registered for a Ph.D. with a Research Advisory Committee and a registered Research Supervisor? You are writing a thesis, and the 2022 Regulations govern you. Note that the same regulations prohibit Ph.D. programmes “through distance and/or online mode”, so a doctorate offered that way is not one the UGC recognises.
- Are you in a two-year research-bearing Master’s with a dedicated final-year research component and an appointed external examiner? You are writing a dissertation. Your department’s scheme is the binding document.
- Is your submission a semester or year-end deliverable in a taught programme, assessed largely internally? You are writing a project report, and the format your guide gives you is the format.
If the answer determines the deadline, the examiner and the archiving of your work, it is worth ten minutes of asking rather than an assumption. Scholars still deciding on a doctoral direction may find our guide to choosing a PhD research topic in India useful before that decision is locked in.
Writing it, whichever it is
The document changes; the discipline of building an argument chapter by chapter does not. Tesify keeps your structure and your references attached to real sources as you draft, so a project report that grows into a dissertation, or a dissertation that becomes the pilot study inside a thesis, does not have to be rebuilt from scratch. The research stays yours.
Start structuring your document in Tesify
Frequently asked questions
Is a dissertation the same as a thesis in India?
No. In Indian usage a dissertation is the research document of a Master’s programme and a thesis is the doctoral document submitted for a Ph.D. Only the thesis is governed by the UGC Ph.D. Regulations, 2022.
Which is harder, a dissertation or a thesis?
A thesis, by requirement rather than by reputation. It must make an original contribution, it is read by at least two external examiners not employed by your institution, and it can be rejected outright. A dissertation is expected to apply an established method competently.
Can I still do an M.Phil. in India?
No. The UGC Ph.D. Regulations, 2022 state that Higher Educational Institutions shall not offer the M.Phil. programme. M.Phil. degrees awarded before those regulations came into force are unaffected and remain a recognised admission route to a Ph.D.
Is an M.Tech submission called a thesis or a dissertation?
Conventionally a dissertation, though a number of Indian institutes call it a thesis in their own ordinances. The label does not change what applies to it: the UGC Ph.D. Regulations do not reach a Master’s submission whatever it is called.
How long should each document be?
No UGC regulation sets a page count for any of the three. Departmental conventions cluster around 40–80 pages for a project report, 60–120 for a dissertation and 150–300 for a thesis, but the figure that binds you is the one in your own handbook.
Will my Master’s dissertation appear on Shodhganga?
Not through any national obligation. The deposit clause in the 2022 Regulations names the Ph.D. thesis only. Whether your institution archives Master’s work in its own repository is a local decision.
Does the plagiarism limit apply to a project report?
The UGC’s similarity thresholds are the national reference point, but whether your project report is screened, at what stage and against which threshold is decided by your department. Ask before submission, not after.
Who examines a PhD thesis in India?
The Research Supervisor and at least two external examiners who are experts in the field and not employed by your institution, with one chosen from outside India wherever possible. The viva board is the supervisor plus at least one of those external examiners.
What happens if an external examiner rejects my thesis?
The institution must send the thesis to an alternate examiner from the approved panel. The viva is held only if that examiner recommends acceptance. If the alternate also declines, the thesis is rejected.
Why do American guides use these words the other way round?
Because the United States follows the opposite convention, using “thesis” for the Master’s document and “dissertation” for the doctoral one. India follows the British pattern. Match any template you download to the degree level it was written for, not to the word on its cover.
Does a project report need a supervisor’s certificate?
The certificate requirement written into the 2022 Regulations is specific to the Ph.D. thesis. Most Indian departments require an equivalent certificate page for reports and dissertations too, but that requirement comes from your institution, so take its exact wording from your own handbook.
My ordinance calls my doctoral submission a dissertation. Does that change anything?
No. The 2022 Regulations attach to the Ph.D. programme, not to the word your ordinance uses. If you are registered for a Ph.D., the national rules on examiners, the six-month evaluation clock and INFLIBNET deposit apply to your document whatever its cover page says.