The Fellow Program will have three broad phases, namely;

1. Two year's course work for studying the prescribed courses as listed in the curriculum design.
2. Comprehensive examination after the successful completion of class work.
3. Thesis period after the successful completion of comprehensive examination.

Duration of the Program

The total duration of the Program may, ordinarily, be of four years and a maximum of six years. Two extensions, of six months each beyond the aforesaid maximum period of six years may be considered in exceptional cases. Students failing to complete the requirements within this time period will be deemed to have withdrawn from the Program. The students are required to stay on campus and work full time at the Institute during the entire program. However, the FPM committee may permit, on recommendation of the Thesis Advisory Committee (TAC), a student to take up/resume employment at any stage, but not before the comprehensive examination is completed, if satisfied that the student will be in a position to continue the thesis work despite being off campus and in job. A student has to meet all the requirements of the Fellow Program according to prescribed standards including the permissible maximum duration of the Program as above and no exemption will be granted for any reason whatsoever.

1. Structure

All the Fellow Programme students are required to meet the following course requirements:

1. 23 core courses of PGP (BM or PM&IR).
2. Summer Training / Summer Project at the end of the first year of the programme. This will be graded as passed or failed and will not be counted for credits.
3. 11 courses in 2nd year, which includes PGP electives, doctoral courses, advanced courses and a seminar course.
4. FPM students are not required to do dissertation unlike the PGP students.

Summer Training / Summer Project

FPM students will be required to undergo summer training like other PGP students. The Institute will offer the summer placement services. However, the FPM Committee may grant exemption from the summer training to any student if the student has put in sufficient work experience in the field relevant to the research field of the student. The student who is exempted from the requirement of the summer training will be required to undertake the summer project work involving library and field research, under the guidance of a faculty member.

Elective Courses

A student is required to do 3 area specific elective courses. The elective courses will be ordinarily chosen from the list of electives offered to the Postgraduate Programme students.

Doctoral Courses

A student is required to do 4 doctoral courses. Of these four, at least 2 needs to be from the student's area of specialization and the remaining courses may be from the list of electives in other areas offered specially to the FPM Students.

Advanced Courses

The FPM students will be required to undergo three advanced or compulsory courses. This is in addition to whatever they will do as part of 23 core courses. The three advanced courses are:

1. Advanced Research Methods (ARM),
2. Advanced Quantitative Techniques (AQT) and
3. Pedagogy for Management Teachers (PMT)

Seminar Course

FPM students are required to undertake a Seminar course in consultation with Faculty Advisory Committee in the field of research interest of the student.

Qualifying Examinations

After successful completion of the course requirements, the FPM student is required to take the comprehensive examination to qualify for the thesis registration.

2. Exemptions from Course Requirement

The FPM student who has done his/her PGP from XLRI, any IIM, MDI Gurgaon, FMS Delhi or XIM Bhubaneswar, in the last seven years, with a CQPI of at least 6.00/8.00 or equivalent may be exempted from the first year core courses and Summer Project as recommended by the Fellow Programme Committee.

In case of any other student, on request, the FPM Committee may grant exemption from one or more core courses. Such exemption will be granted if the student has done that course earlier at postgraduate level with a matching syllabus, subject to student passing the requisite proficiency test in the subject to be conducted by the concerned faculty within two weeks of the commencement of that course in the programme. No exemption from any course will be granted without passing such an examination. The grade obtained by the student in the proficiency test will be awarded as the final grade in the exempted course.

The exempted courses will not be excluded from the qualifying examinations.