National Testing Agency (NTA) has notified the Joint CSIR-UGC National Eligibility Test (NET) June-2024, a test to determine the eligibility of Indian nationals for ‘award of Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and appointment as Assistant Professor’, ‘appointment as Assistant Professor and admission to Ph.D.’ and ‘admission to Ph.D. only’ in Indian universities and colleges. 

Joint CSIR-UGC NET will be conducted as Computer Based Test (CBT) in (i) Chemical Sciences (ii) Earth, Atmospheric, Ocean and Planetary Sciences (iii) Life Sciences (iv) Mathematical Sciences and (v) Physical Sciences.

Eligibility: Applicant should have a Master’s Degree or equivalent with 55% marks (50% for OBC NCL/ SC/ ST/ PwD/Third gender category) without rounding off. Those pursuing Master’s degree and those awaiting results of Master’s degree (final year) may also apply. However, they will be considered eligible for NET, only after they pass Master’s Degree with prescribed marks within two years from the date of NET result. Those who qualify for ‘Admission to Ph.D. Only’ must complete their Master’s degree within one year from the date of NET result. 

Those pursuing Four Year/8 Semester Bachelor’s Degree Programme and are in their last semester/year may also apply for the test. However, they will be eligible for the award of JRF/admission to Ph.D. only after fulfilling the requirements as per UGC regulations, within two years (if qualified for award of JRF)/within one year (if qualified for admission to Ph.D. only) from the date of declaration of NET result. Those with a Four-Year Bachelor’s Degree are allowed to appear in a subject in which they want to pursue a Ph.D. irrespective of the discipline in which they have obtained the four-year bachelor’s degree. Those with 4-year/8-semester bachelor’s degree should have a minimum of 75% marks in aggregate (70% for those belonging to SC/ ST/ OBC (NCL)/ Differently-Abled, EWS and other categories) or its equivalent grade. Those qualifying NET, based on four-year undergraduate degree, will be eligible for the award of the Junior Research Fellowship (JRF) and for admission to the Ph.D. They will not be eligible for appointment as Assistant Professor. 

Upper Age limit: (i) For JRF - Not more than 30 years as on 1st June, 2024. A relaxation of up to 5 years is provided to those belonging to OBC-NCL/SC/ST/PwD/Third gender categories and to women applicants (ii) Assistant Professor: There is no upper age limit (iii) Admission to PhD: There is no upper age limit. 

Details of relaxations in eligibility conditions are given in the Information Bulletin at https://csirnet.nta.ac.in/

CSIR-UGC NET will be of 180 minutes (03 hours) duration and will be conducted on 25, 26 & 27th June, 2024. It will have Objective Type, Multiple Choice Questions. Medium of the Paper will be Bi-lingual (English and Hindi) 

Pattern of Question Papers: The Test will be in 3 parts. Part 'A' shall be common to all subjects and will have questions pertaining to General Aptitude with emphasis on logical reasoning, graphical analysis, analytical and numerical ability, quantitative comparison, series formation, puzzles etc. Part 'B' shall contain subject-related conventional Multiple-Choice questions (MCQs), generally covering the topics given in the syllabus. Part 'C' shall contain higher order questions that may test the candidate's knowledge of scientific concepts and/or application of the scientific concepts. The questions shall be of analytical nature where a candidate is expected to apply scientific knowledge to arrive at the solution to the given scientific problem. There will be no break between papers. The subject-wise scheme of examination is given in the Information Bulletin at https://csirnet.nta.ac.in/. Syllabus may be seen at www.csirhrdg.res.in 

Application: Application can be submitted online at https://csirnet.nta.ac.in/ latest by 21.05.2024. Application Fee is Rs. 1150/- (Rs. 600/- for General-EWS/OBC(NCL) and Rs. 325/- for SC/ST/PwD/Third Gender). Application fee can be paid latest by 11.50 pm on 23.05.2024 using Debit/Credit Card/UPI or Internet Banking through any of the payment gateway of SBI/ICICI. Correction Window for online correction of specified fields in the Application, will be open from 25.05.2024 to 27.05.2024.

The merit lists decided by Result Committee will be made on the basis of performance of candidates in the test. There will be no separate cut-off for Part A, B & C. The cumulative marks of all parts are taken into consideration for drawing of merit list. There is a minimum bench mark of 33% for General, EWS & OBC category and 25 % in respect of SC/ ST and PwD categories for both fellowship and Assistant Professor.

For any queries or /clarifications, candidates can call NTA Help Desk at 011-40759000 or 011-69227700 or write to NTA at csirnet@nta.ac.in.  

Websites: https://csirnet.nta.ac.in and www.nta.ac.in