A PhD student at CASE (with a PhD roll number assigned by UET Taxila) has to complete at least 48 credit hours of graduate level course work (including 30 credit hours of Masters courses) and 30 credit hours of PhD dissertation work. The minimum course work required in the PhD is 18 credit hours or six courses (this applies to students who already have a Masters degree). A student must have at least one semester of full-time enrollment (at least two graduate courses) each year.

Students are required to maintain a minimum CGPA of 3.00/4.00 in order to maintain PhD student status. Failing to maintain this CGPA may lead to dismissal from the program. The minimum time period for the PhD program is three years and the maximum is seven years. The PhD program start date will be counted after the completion of 30 credit hours for students in the MSc leading to PhD track.

Important Post Graduate(Doctorial) Program Milestones

A student must pass a Doctoral Qualifying Exam (DQE) within the first two years. The DQE will be offered twice in a year. A student will have to clear the DQE in the prescribed time limit. If the student fails to pass the DQE within this two year limit, he/she will be dismissed from the PhD program.

Doctoral Research

A PhD student can enroll in research credit hours when a student’s: course plan has been approved supervisor has been assigned and is willing to supervise the research and has given formal approval allowing the student to register in the research credit hours request to enroll for research has been approved by the chairman in writing

Doctoral Qualifying Examination : DQE consists of two parts, written paper (DQE Part I) and an interview (DQE Part II). DQE Part I will consist of questions from core courses from MEM curricula at CASE). It is assumed that you have passed core course if you have earned MEM from CASE. All the direct entrants to PhD programs with Masters degrees from other institutions may take some of the core course if they have not covered those subjects in their Master’s program or prepare themselves by reviewing the lecture CDs of core courses from CASE library. The DQE Part II, the interview, will be conducted by a panel of experts from academia and industry. They will assess the candidate for his/her suitability for PhD candidacy. They may judgment the candidates suitability based on research potential, ability to follow the rigors of PhD program, knowledge of technical filed of interest, professional maturity, presentation skills, communication skills and other relevant skills.

DQE Qualification Criteria : PhD Committee will review the result of DQE Part I exam and make the assessment who qualifies the Exam. Generally the students who obtain 65% aggregate marks in a paper are considered qualified. DQE Part II (Interview) will be conducted after the student qualifies the written test. The student will have two chances to clear DQE Part II. Those who cannot clear DQE Part I and Part II within the allowed attempts (two each), will not be allowed to continue their PhD studies at CASE.

Proposal Defense: A student must submit a proposal for a research topic and receive approval from the Research Committee within one year of passing the DQE.

Doctoral Candidate: A student will be admitted to candidacy once he/she has passed the DQE and defended his/her dissertation topic.

Final Defense: The student must defend the dissertation work before the jury. There must be a minimum period of six months between the proposal defense and the final defense. The dissertation may be submitted within a minimum period of 3 years. This period shall be counted from the date of approval of PhD admission by BPGS. The student must defend his/her work in front of a panel of examiners consisting of at least four research committee members (including the thesis supervisor) and an external examiner, who is appointed by the department. The candidate will have two chances to defend the PhD thesis. Failure in the second attempt will be considered final and the student will be dropped from PhD program. Students who are unable to complete their PhD degree can apply for the MPhil/MSc degree program, if the course work and research work done in the PhD fulfils the minimum degree requirements of MPhil/MSc under HEC Guidelines.

Rules & Regulations for Doctoral Qualifying Examination (DQE)

A PhD student is eligible to appear for DQE at anytime (whenever DQE is held)

Post Graduate(Doctorial) Completion

After a successful final thesis defense, the student must submit form PhD-VI to the r Engineering Management department bearing the signatures of all the Research Committee members and the Advisor. The student must also submit two hardbound copies of the thesis (according to the specified format) to the CASE office, for inclusion in the library.