Technically you are meant to write them a letter to tell them. But honestly for that amount of money, I really wouldn't think it's worth it. It would cost them more to process than they'd get in tax. There might even be some small print somewhere setting a threshold for additrional income before it needs declaring.

Hi,

Yes the nearest equivalent to a German tax number is our NI number, and it's a requirement for payment in Germany (the German tax authorities need these records for the publishers' tax calculations, but it's incredibly unlikely that they'd check whether you'd declared the payment to the Inland Revenue). Perfectly normal to send bank details too as the only way they can pay you is through a bank transfer. So long as you've checked it's an OK publisher i.e. not one of the multiple names based in Saarbruecken who want to publish every undergraduate essay you wrote (and as you mention payment it's almost certainly not them), it sounds prefectly fine to me.

A few thoughts:
1) a very obvious one - but are they definitely still at the university? We've had a rather surreal official complaint recently about a member of staff not providing references. That's because he died five years ago. It seems a computing glitch meant his email remained active. Staff move around quite a lot, so it is worth double-checking especially if they have been responsive to emails in the past. If they have moved on, google will probably find their new employer or the departmental office can put together a stock reference from the files, but that's not great for PhD purposes as it will be very factual / basic, so getting the actual person is best.
2) I assume you got their permission before putting their name as a reference as that's basic politeness, but have you made it as easy as possible for them to write a reference? I must admit the students, who have been in touch, asked me if I'd be a referee, told me what they're applying for and why they think they are a good candidate, given me a copy of their cv so I have the information to hand (rather than having to try and recall their student files from central records) and reminded me of when I taught them (a reminder of their dissertation title is often extremely helpful for instance), do get references sent out quicker than those who don't. Why - because they've made the task a straightforward one. A particular nightmare are those demands for references without information or warning from ex-students with common names, where there is a good chance you've taught several people with that name.

Depending on your field, strong research methods training might be important, so you might want to compare what both institutions have on offer in addition to HazyJane's list.
I would also say that an unfunded PhD is to be avoided if possible, and would agree with the advice that you need to look at the reputation of the department rather than institutions. You might want to ask your MA dissertation advisor for some blunt advice, on whether the ex-poly dept you're considering is considered good in the field or not.

What country is your friend trying to study in? I'm assuming it isn't the UK as you are talking about GPA. If it's anything like the UK though, and most of the scholarships are provided by national research councils, then it might be worth checking their eligibility rules to see if they expressly rule out candidates without a first degree. If it's the funders' rules that are the problem, then there may be little a university can do.

Trying to put your two posts together - if I understood correctly, it's your industrial supervisor that you've complained about? And your departmental supervisor who wishes you'd gone to her first? Is the funding a collaborative industry / university deal? If so, it would depend on what sort of contract exists between the university and firm and how crucial the industrial supervisor is to the project being able to go ahead, I think.

It is possible to shift and I'd like to suggest one way in that scientists have taken in the past. That is to go in through security / war / peace studies: these are fields where scientific knowledge can be very useful e.g. your background would possibly lead to an interest in biological weapons. E.g. something like this http://www.kcl.ac.uk/sspp/departments/warstudies/study/graduate/ss.aspx
I would though give one caveat: make sure the academic discipline of IR / Politics is what you think it is. It can come as a bit of a shock. I'd suggest getting hold of a copy of the classic first year undergrad 'intro to IR' textbook Baylis, Smith and Owens 'The Globalisation of World Politics' and see what you think.

I think you do need to clarify why your supervisor thinks the course is vital for this summer. Is it because you are going to need it more than you think for your fieldwork i.e. she knows something about the sources that you haven't realised, or is it because she's thinking about your long-term career and is concerned about getting something onto your c.v. that you need to be competitive in your field? I get the impression from your original post, that your institution's / field's stress on language competence is something you are finding a bit of a struggle, and that your supervisor sees as a weakness in your profile - if so could you perhaps present your alternative summer plans around the need to work on your modern Turkish more so that the fieldwork goes well and that you don't want to confuse the two? Could you propose doing an alternative modern Turkish intensive course that is at a more convenient time for example? I think if you present your alternative plan as something that will address her concerns and ground it in sound academic reasons, then you have a better chance of not rocking the boat. I wouldn't even mention the wedding.

Honestly I would turn it down, but with the caveat that this might be the best offer you will ever get, with funding in the humanities being as it is. I think the only way deals like this are really feasible is if you can live rent-free somewhere e.g. family in same city. I do know someone who did this, but it was a hand-to-mouth existence and she spent unbelievable amounts of time applying for small pots of money from foundations etc - from her experience, there simply aren't any sources that will pay your full maintenance costs. The one thing that she did do that made it slightly better was to work as a live-in warden for a university hall of residence - that covered her rent reliably at least. My own take on it several years post-PhD and seeing how we all got on afterwards, is that it is not worth getting into debt to do a PhD. If you are eligible for a full AHRC grant, I would try again next year and apply to as many places with the full funding as possible.
As to whether it's moral - a fee waiver probably isn't that much more of a cost than paying someone to do that teaching when you add on the extra NI contributions etc. So yes I think you're right to be cynical. Universities are more like businesses than anyone cares to think, and they know humanities applicants are desperately chasing very few fully funded places.

PS I don't think doing the PGCE part-time alongside a post-doc is going to be viable at all (and the postdoc contract might rule this out). I've seen the hours people doing PGCEs have to put in - it's pretty brutal, and if you wanted to maximise the postdoc you'd also need to be working long hours. I think you do need to choose.

If I were you these are the sets of questions that I'd be asking myself:
1) How competitive am I at the moment for an academic job (e.g. am I getting short-listed and just missing out or nowhere near), and do I really want one (being very honest about what the job is really like, rather than people think it is)? Would I be able to get enough out of the postdoc to considerably improve the odds of getting a lectureship e.g. what could you realistically get published? What sacrifices are my family prepared to make so that I can chase the dream - e.g. is my wife prepared to relocate anywhere in the country so that you can apply for everything? (This is a conversation you have to have, if you haven't already. If you are geographically tied, then the odds of getting an academic job fall considerably.)
2) Do I actually want to be a teacher / social worker / SALT? (Very different careers and the first two are notoriously high-pressure so difficult to thrive in if you lack the real desire to do the job). What are the realistic job prospects at the end - e.g. I know quite a few people who trained as primary teachers and can't find a post? What would my ideal job be and why? Is it the depression talking when you say you can't get a non-academic job without retraining or is it reality?
3) What are my priorities in life? Do I live to work or work to live? How important is a dream career to my happiness?
If you were single and really wanted an academic job, I'd risk the postdoc, but try to use it to network outside as well as within academia, to enable a two-pronged job search at the end. But you have family responsibilities, and it might be too great a risk. I'd involve your wife in deciding what way to jump - I think it has to be a joint decision.

Biomaterials and others - I've hesitated about posting this in case it sounded patronising, which is not the intent at all but wanted to share the experiences of friends. I was the only one of my cohort to 'make it' - a prestigious postdoc followed by a lectureship. At the time, people were very bitter (to the extent in one case of refusing to speak to me) but four years on, things are very different. With one exception, they've all got interesting and challenging jobs, I'm pretty sure earn more than I do and are very much 'over' academia. The one exception is the person still clinging on with hourly paid teaching across three universities. She is poor and bitter, and the hours she works mean she's got hardly anything published, which means the applications she keeps making are largely pointless given the competition. So the one lesson learnt is not to hang onto the dream if it's not really viable. Second, though, academia really isn't that great in the UK. The side you don't see as a PhD student is just how appalling the management are and how much pressure there is to publish more, get more grants, do more engagement, teach more, fill in more forms, mark quicker but give more feedback etc when you are already working 60-70 hour weeks. Everything we do is performance managed and nothing is ever good enough. Tbh the irony these days is that I look at my friends who 'escaped' and feel quite envious. I enjoy teaching and researching but I'd also like a work-life balance...
So although giving up the dream might feel awful now, there's a very good chance that it might end up working out very well for you. Good luck!

You work extremely long hours and get accustomed to rejection I'm afraid. Teaching prep takes less time when you haven't got all new courses to prepare, so that will get easier. On the grants, get any feedback you can, improve it, tweak it to fit new requirements, and apply to another funder. In my field a 20% success rate in grant applications is doing pretty well and you have to recycle ideas in new and improved formats. It can also be helpful to try and work together with a more senior academic with a good track record in getting funding on a joint application, to see what they are doing differently. But it's also worth knowing your strengths. If you aren't someone with lots of ideas about your future research agenda, but are a great teacher, then look carefully at what your employer is expecting - could you instead apply for funding to do pedagogical research and still have it count to whatever target you need to hit for instance?

Is it not the case that lab scientists very rarely publish single-authored papers but rather the lab head directs a team who each work on connected projects and co-author? You seem to be jumping to the assumption that you won't get credit but from the lengthy lists of authors on all the science articles I've seen, that might be a little premature. Presumably your own project will also benefit from the earlier work of others in your lab in some way. I'd agree with treeoflife that on the basis of what you have posted, you seem to be jumping to conclusions without much evidence.

I'd suggest asking your MA dissertation supervisor for advice because it really does depend on how competitive you are as to what I'd advise. Ask him/her how competitive they think you would be for scholarships in the UK (bearing in mind that there's very little funding for humanities / social science PhDs and if you're not a UK/EU national you're not eligible for most of it). I imagine you already know your scholarship chances in your home country, Also ask your supervisor to be very honest about what value a PhD offers in your field for non-academic jobs and the state of the academic jobs market in your field. I think you need to have a full picture of the risks and opportunities to make a good decision. Personally, I would not start without full funding in place, knowing what I do about the job market, but then I'm risk-averse.