It's very rare, in the UK, for a lecturer to have immediate access to PhD funding - i.e. be able to decide to take you on and make a funded studentship happen. What normally happens with any grants they secure, is they go out to jobs.ac.uk at the point the project they're related to starts. Candidates then apply in a normal job application scenario.

Unfortunately it's a bit of a false assumption that Universities fund PhDs (though most have small-scale, fought over schemes); the majority of funded PhDs come from UKRI or EU projects whose investigators are at the institution. This means there are comparatively few rolling 'open' calls for applications. If your Uni doesn't have an immediately apparent scheme, it's possible one doesn't exist.

It's very likely you'd need to move for a funded studentship given this, since you'd need to be applying for studentships funded by projects in your field, and the chances of there being one starting at the perfect time, at your institution, and you being the best candidate, are pretty slim.

Universities are, of course, open to self-funded applications. I think the reality might be you need to decide between mobility, or, if it's absolutely not an option and you're determined to do one, doing a self-funded full or part-time one at your local institution.

I'll do my best here but please remember this is ultimately my opinion/limited experience:

(1) the student was given non clear advice;

This is subjective, a court wouldn't be expected to, or be capable of, judging what constitutes 'clear' advice to a PhD student.

(2) the university has acknowledged that provoked severe distress in the student due to lack of supervision and communication;

Bear in mind with a court the judge will likely have heard cases of bricks being thrown through windows, knives being pulled, or years of abuse; this doesn't make the stress of any individual experience less or more significant, but you do need to understand there's a (depressingly) high bar there around claiming for stress. If you're not claiming for stress, but a procedural failing, this doesn't help your argument.

(3) this stress is scientifically proven to affect the rational adjustment of a person, who becomes unable to estimate risk/reward ration and tends to ask and trust the opinion of an "expert" (aka Dean of Department);

It would be a court hearing, not a PhD viva. The way civil courts work they will want to be in and out in 15 minutes. It's also for this reason having multiple points isn't a strength; you want a single clear (ideally procedural) failing on the universities behalf, because they will find for the defendant if you don't provide one. Basically a judge will look (in about 10 minutes) for a) what was promised/contracted, b) the evidence this was not delivered. a) and b) need to be crystal-clear to win as if things get vague/complicated/compounded, it's in favour of the defendant.

(4) a deadline was coming;

Seems irrelevant.

(5) the observations reported timely by the same student (since 18 months) affected the viva; (6) in the entire university websites and regulations there is no written information on the possibility or procedures to postpone (so, actually, he didn't have really other options in that moment).

You may get them on this. Anything with regulations/procedures/breach of contract is where you would want to focus. If there's a lack of information that they're obliged to provide, or you were treated unequally due to them failing to provide you with information, you can win a case. Basically, the vast majority of cases won against universities are them failing to provide services as advertised or to-contract. As I mentioned in my previous post, though, they are aware of this and have stealthily and unethically been amending/carefully wording what they advertise and contract to protect themselves.

"I see. I got a fees-exempted scholarship for my Ph.D. (so I did it for free, but I did not have a full scholarship and had to pay my living expenses working part-time), so you think that I cannot appeal for my +14 months (when they could have been +2) if my supervisor actually did his job as reported in the university's regulations (which is technically my contract, right, through which I am entitled with some services)?

You can (though it would more accurately be a complaint over the time you did not receive supervision, and - more difficult to argue - the consequences. It's very hard to argue rationally beyond doubt that if the supervisor had done their job you'd have passed sooner. It's also hard to argue they forced you to submit if you signed the form.

The hard bit over supervision, would that legally this would be assessed 'as contracted'. Not answering for 5 weeks might seem unreasonable, but you will probably find the University *promises* you (contractually binds themselves to) a scandalously low amount of supervision. For many Unis, the contracted amount of supervision is something like 20-40 hours a year, including time to review your drafts. It usually does not specify how frequent this should be, and will almost inevitably have no clause they they will respond within x weeks.

It's pretty scandalous tbh as any competent supervisor is going to put in way more than 20 hours per year, but legal departments at universities have become savvy to litigious students, and this protects them against that, because all they'd have to show is that over the calendar year you had a few meetings and feedback on a draft. Applications for studentships are so competitive most people are happy to sign (or don't check) against these terms.

As others have said, you may well be best served cutting your losses and moving on. It's a risk if you spend money on litigation, since whilst I'd readily agree with you the Uni is not in the right morally or ethically, I can see their position arguable legally, and that's what would matter in court.

There is an element of 'graft' in any PhD, regardless of whether you pick the topic or not. Most successful PhDs are absolutely sick of their own thesis by the time they graduate. To research even the most interesting topic rigorously usually involves a degree of repetition, tedium, and attention-to-detail.

So, changing topic won't automatically be a magic solution, if the problem arose from the tedium and monotony of academic rigour. Especially if you don't want to go into academia I'd carefully consider the 'cut your losses' route, as employers outside of academia tend to attach little value to a PhD, and you'd be better off with 3 years industry experience than a PhD. This obviously depends on the field/area/what you want to do with your life, but if you're not interested in becoming an academic, I'd think carefully before spending both money and time training to become one.

I'm not sure if you're misinterpreting, since you appear to have passed w/ majors and been given 14 months to do them.

This doesn't mean you need to take 14 months, but you do need to address the corrections. You'd be perfectly entitled to refuse any work other than the corrections if you're not being paid to do it.

I don't think you're necessarily in a worse position here, as you survived the viva, and the alternative as I can see it is they'd advised you not to submit, and spend another 12 months working on it, in which case the ultimate time for you to complete the PhD would, in all likelihood, be longer.

If you have evidence you literally got nothing from your supervisor for 6 months, then you're also not in a bad place (still having passed). Most universities have a policy indicated the minimum contact time for a supervisor (this is typically low, but it's rarely silent-for-6-months-right-before-submission-is-ok low), so you could appeal for reimbursement of fees based on lack of supervision. It's important to note you can never appeal or complain for a better outcome, or 'free' PhD due to supervisor negligence, but you can absolutely appeal for reimbursement if you paid money for supervision at an agreed level (written into the paperwork) and didn't get it.

It's definitely not impossible, and I disagree that the 2:1 at undergrad is a major barrier as well. Admittedly if you're trying to get into a world-leading group at a top uni, it's probably the case that the majority of applicants will have 1sts/distinctions/know the right people from Eton. But for the remaining 95% of opportunities, you would likely meet the requirements to get through the initial sift, and it will be more down to how you perform at interview. Most experienced academics have learnt (often the hard way) a student with top grades is not automatically the best PhD candidate - especially if they have top grades because they're really good at exam technique and working to short, clear, assessed objectives; both of which are almost irrelevant to a PhD.

If you come across as knowledgeable, passionate, and can explain away the grade (or just say you have an MSc, which is true, and should be grounded in the kinda-ridiculous-when-you-think-about-it fact that what you feel was an awful result was only 12% off a distinction), you will be in good stead.

It's probably worth noting you would substantially increase your chances if you're not constrained to looking in the UK.

You're also in the fortunate position of having a full-time job, so you can take the time to keep applying. If you do this, and accept the odds of success per application are going to sit around 5%, then you'll recognize it will take patience but is very unlikely to be a lost cause.

Btw it seems a really bad idea to do a 2nd self-funded masters in the hopes of getting a higher grade. That's based on some really risky assumptions (that you'll get one, and that it will make the difference). It's not just £3k you're gambling but a year of lost earnings while you study. I'd put the £3k on a roulette table and shoot for self-funding a PhD with the winnings before doing that...

The general progression for me over my academic career has been gaining the confidence not by my own gains in knowledge, but the realization that pretty much everyone in academia is 'normal' (including myself).


I would not say they're faking it, as this implies there's a 'genuine' academic majority who are the kind of geniuses I daresay the general public or undergraduates think of. I learned progressively that:


1) Most multi-million dollar research grants are not genius science concepts, but obvious incremental work, that most people could come up with in 15 minutes with a Wikipedia-level knowledge of the field. But only an academic would suffer writing it as 100 pages in a particular style.


2) Most professors know about 5 vaguely current papers well, plus the one their PhD student mentioned in the last meeting, and mention them in every meeting to sound well-read.


3) Most academics have developed an air of authority not from mastery of a field, but from the necessity of telling students at the back to be quiet on a daily basis.


4) A good academic is probably not an expert in their field in the sense of knowing that much about it, they're a good academic because they've repeatedly screwed up basic things like how to do an ANOVA or write a literature review, and learned from it.

Read them carefully; then do them.

It's simple advice, but you're in a position now where it's (statistically) hard to *not* get a PhD.

Your examiners will be faced with the simple option - is this a PhD, or a fail. It takes a really harsh examiner to fail a PhD after minors. What you don't want to do, is give them the impression you don't care about the corrections, or haven't listened.

In general, you should always submit a secondary document explaining how you've addressed each correction you received, with a page reference to the thesis. This helps examiners massively, as they don't have to then trawl through the thesis trying to find if the correction was addressed. I'd wait until you get the list of corrections, tabulate them, then work through one-by-one, adding to the table how you addressed it.

If you find one you strongly disagree with, you could instead provide an academic argument in this table as to why, on reflection, you've not undertaken the correction, but this is one to be super-careful with, as the academic argument you provide needs to be pretty water-tight.

You can do additional corrections outside of this, but bear in mind what an examiner really cares about is a) did the candidate listen, and b) did they undertake the correction - and if not, why not. It will be - very likely - extremely painful for them if they fail you after a successful viva, so provided you show genuine effort listening to where they're coming from, and addressing the corrections, you will, almost undoubtedly, be Dr. wekkies very soon :)

I think part of the key here, have read your posts on the situation, is to work out what you want the outcome to be.

If it's that you think comments made were racist, and you want the person involved to be punished (which would probably be sacked/and or fined), then pursue this legally. Unhesitatingly. There should not be, and never be, any space for this.

This will not get you a PhD, though.

The important distinction to make is the 'academic judgement' about whether you got a PhD is not a legal thing; you can (and may well be very rightly entitled to) argue in a court for racial discrimination, or challenge for reimbursement of fees, as the University may have broken it's contract with you. But you can't argue that you should get a PhD for any reason other than you've done work worthy of one.

It's extremely difficult without seeing the video to understand the nature or basis of the discrimination. Bear in mind courts routinely deal with out-and-out racism, not perspectives of one country on the quality of academic outputs from another, so if it's that basis you intend to argue it will be difficult - but possible - to make a case.

It is generally best to be as open as possible to critique - no matter how harsh - but if this is based in racism, then you shouldn't hesitate to stand against it. Yet, as mentioned, this would be to prosecute a racist, not to get a PhD.

Personally, if this were on the basis of 'people from x country are sh*t academics', I'd just do the corrections, and spend the rest of my career proving them wrong. There's absolutely a fight to be had there (I've worked on many EU projects, and seen much casual discrimination), but if it's a direct attack on your ethnicity/gender, that's absolutely wrong and worth fighting against.

Partly this is the 'shock' every postdoc gets after a PhD. What was a passionate (ideally), self-centered approach to research inevitable has to become a job, with all the boilerplate work that entails.

However, if you want to progress in academia, this shouldn't be your sole remit, and something you will need to push against. You want to get, as quickly as possible, to a position where you're proposing work you want to do and angling for the funding to do it. What you don't want to end up as is a technical developer paid 50% of an industry salary.

Rewt is absolutely right (as is usually the case!); this doesn't sound disastrous but the strategic thing to do is care less about the bug catching (not your project - who cares if a few slip through, unless they invalidate research you're co-authoring), and focus on identifying funding streams, or your own independent research leading to publication. This will be hard, if, as most computer scientists, you're happier with your head down in code than accepting proposal rejections for subjective reasons, or getting out networking (as much as covid permits!).

If there's one thing I learned in my own PhD>postdoc transition is that the biggest difference is that nobody will tell you what to do, other than the immediate work. It's (ostensibly) your own freedom outside of doing the mandatory grind - which with personal hindsight I recommend to keep to the bare minimum - that you need to use to shape your own research career. This does not come naturally after doing a PhD in which you're basically on one project, focused, and getting feedback around it. But unless the situation is absolutely terrible (in which case move), you'd hope your manager would be open to 'I want to write a grant on x, can you give me some support?', or 'I have a great idea for some independent research...'.

It's understandable as you'll probably get very mixed advice on this.

Probably your uni don't want to lose a student they've either stipended, or who is a paying customer. Whether your supervisor tows their line or is impartial can be 50-50. There is a logic to 'just write it up and stick it in'. The bar for success with corrections at viva is typically lower than people think. But that's the uni caring about having a completion, not your future.

I'd think there's a deeper issue here that's probably rooted in the fact you don't want to be an academic. You really need to throw yourself in hard in the first few years, which takes a lot of initial passion, for the last few years to not be an excruciating catch-up against a looming deadline.

A PhD is of limited value outside of academia, so if you don't want to be an academic, there's little reason left to pursue it. But the logical thing to do - especially if you're stipended, is to get a job offer then quit to accept it. It's considerably easier to explain you're a PhD student but open to other opportunities, than it is to explain a 'failed' PhD or 3 year gap in a CV. In particular if you're worried about mental wellbeing and don't have another job to move into you should consider the potential negative effect of doing nothing, or applying for jobs (with the inevitable consecutive rejections that everyone goes through), whilst unemployed.

In short - move on, but formally quit the PhD the same day you sign the contract for your new future. Until you have that contract, prioritise applying for jobs and work on the PhD to keep you occupied in the meantime.

The best advice I can probably give is a bit generic, but...

Take your head out of the books/web. Accept there is no perfect RQ. Think just based on your intuition for a few minutes about what's interesting in the topic area - or even just what you don't know. Scribble down the first few ideas you have no matter how bad you think they are.

Then take a second look at them, with some limited web searching and literature scanning. Your criteria needs to be not 'is it perfect', but 'is it reasonably ok'. Reasonably ok is a PhD. Aiming for perfect is a guaranteed fail after wasting 10 years of trying. Leave it to other people such as your DoS to try to tear it down, don't do it yourself.

A lot of PhD students waste countless amounts of time and effort trying to find the 'perfect' RQ or the 'correct' topic. Often when interrogated they actually have a half-dozen perfectly viable RQs but are actually stressing because, either consciously or subconsciously, they're trying to pick the 'best' one when there's no such thing.

You need to be vocal in raising this to your University. Many students struggle in silence, and many hardship funds go underspent, because every student assumes their 'hardship' is not actual hardship, when it is.

No University wants the media story 'our PhD students are going hungry because they've been screwed by our precarious teaching contracts under covid'. This is the reality for quite a lot (you're not alone); and a typical stipend, as you say, is *maybe* enough to live on if you're the 'ideal' single, bedsit-accommodated student who lives in the office, but not even close to enough if you have dependents or don't fit the fictional ideal.

You need to communicate this to your University in a way that isn't threatening or naive but will set the necessary alarm bells ringing so someone that can take action does. There are a lot of ways you can do this; e.g. the PR threat - 'Can you please confirm you're unwilling to support, so I can take this confirmation to charitable organisations and promote my case for support to a wider audience'; the league table threat - 'As a result, I see it as unfeasible to complete my PhD in the designated timeframe and we need to discuss how this could be accommodated', or the massive-inconvenience threat 'I will not be able to fulfil the project deliverables, since as we have agreed, my PhD must take precedence'; or the triple-threat (all the above). Do dilute these in advance, and only if you've exhausted all sensible options, in the spirit of picking your battles!

Sorry if my OP sounded too critical,

Yes you're completely correct you only need to explain how things work to the extent the results are justified.

There's not a right answer in many cases since, taken to the nth degree, can we be sure SPSS gave us the right answer? Probably(?); and nobody's going to question that it did, since otherwise 90% of papers would be taken up on the inner workings of peripheral software.

There's still an intrinsic academic risk in assuming closed source stuff works as claimed (I know this from experience - and this might not be from malice on the part of the creator, but no software is bug free); no matter who claims it, it's still a risk. When presenting findings it needs to be a managed & communicated risk (and in the SPSS example, simply saying 'We used SPSS' is often sufficient, since if it's later found to have a bug it can be quickly related to the findings).

There's a lot of common sense there and consequent vagueness; if the software is e.g. integrating via a finite element method, that's a well-known thing and provided results are in the bounds of common sense it's unlikely to be questioned. If it's Facebook and they're claiming x algorithm doesn't discriminate because the developer says so it will be dug into. It's likely to fall somewhere in between (probably towards the former), in which case it's not a big deal, but I'd stand by the convention of explaining the algorithm used within the paper, and citing the developer's input in acknowledgements. The risk of citing email exchanges is you give reviewers something to criticise that would probably be a non-issue if omitted.