India, July 23 -- Last week, IIT Hyderabad's director announced plans for a product-based PhD degree. A month ago, IIT Kharagpur has launched India's first fully structured innovation and product-centric doctoral programme aimed at transforming job-seekers into job-creators.

At first glance, these may appear to be academic reforms.

In reality, they may be early adaptations to a world where knowledge itself is becoming abundant.

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) accelerates discovery, the value of researchers may increasingly lie not in generating more information but in deciding what problems deserve solving, which solutions deserve trust, and how innovation can serve society.

The PhD was born in an era when humanity struggled to produc...