Amazing That no one has mentioned Blue Peter. Or was it too uncool to like Blue pater as a child? Anyway the BP dream team of course...John, Peter and Val.

The singing ringing tree. Really gives the game away on 'ages' if you remember that.

"I for one found it really condescending".

Yes so did I. Accordingly, I started off with the word pompous, moved onto condescending but ended up with self-important in my post two or so back. I was under the impression there was a movement by many Universities towards 1+3's anyway, ala the New Route. They obviously see some purpose in the 1.

I think Stu was trying to imply [a bit clumsilyand rather rudely] that you came across as rather self-important. You did.

Any Lean. Dr. Zhivago is arguably his best and my favourite.

Thanks Stu. The research concept(s) have some merit and [I think] would have some commercial viability for future employment.

As you suggest I am being actively advised towards the PT route by the Admissions Tutors which is fair enough. After just doing 2 years of MSc it would be nice to have someone else 'pick up the bill' or at least a bit of it, was my thinking.

I will look into the funding council aspect.

Yes I agree. But I didn't want to waffle on being a short and concise kinda guy.

Notwithstanding that, I was looking around two general ideas. Initially, at 'the application of open-source ERP systems in micro business in NW England' [a very unresearched area]. I was informed while that was interesting and useful, it would be more commercial to consider 'the development of virtual learning environments in Further education' [or variations on that theme].

All that said and done there appears to be little funding around for the latter, with most admissions tutors actively pushing the self-funding route from the off.

Hi all. I've just finsihed an MSc in a computing based discpline [with distiction for what its worth]. I am looking to embarking on a Phd in the areas of education and IT/computing, and/or information systems. Having had some preliminary discussions with some university research admission tutors it would appear funding in these areas is very thin on the ground [I am informed effectively impossible even with top qualifications].

There appears on here [and appearences can be deceptive I know] that there is a fair bit of money floating around for traditional science lab based research BUT very little in my area of academia.

Would any present or past research students care to comment re this. Is there any money to be had in Computing/IT and education research or am I effectively banging my head repeatedly against a brick wall?