KPIT Technologies, a global partner to the automotive and mobility ecosystem focused on building a cleaner, smarter and safer world, declared the winners of the 7th edition of the KPIT Shodh Awards, recognising doctoral research contributing to some of the most significant technology domains shaping industry today.

The 2026 edition placed specific emphasis on doctoral research aligned with Energy & Climate, Advanced Materials, Bioengineering and Artificial Intelligence (AI) - areas driving the next generation of intelligent and sustainable systems. The programme saw participation from over 400 PhD scholars with more than 170 doctoral research submissions, this year.

The submissions reflected major global megatrends, comprising the acceleration of AI-driven systems, the requirement for climate-responsive energy innovation, material science advancements enabling next-generation engineering, and bioengineering solutions addressing complex healthcare and environmental needs.

The Awards follow a structured, year-long, multi-stage evaluation process. Research themes are curated to reflect evolving technological priorities, and submissions are reviewed by KPIT’s senior leadership and subject matter experts across disciplines. Human expertise led the evaluation, with AI augmenting scale and consistency to ensure depth, rigour and fairness across the review process. In addition to scientific depth and originality, the assessment considered long-term technological relevance, translational potential and the ability of the research to address systemic, real-world challenges.