Hi Mugdha

What field are you in? That may have some effect on what is the norm.

It's rare for departments/supervisors to have money sitting around waiting for prospective project proposals. So don't take it as a reflection on your ideas that no-one has offered you funding yet, it's more that the funding system isn't well set up for your attempted route of entry.

Assuming you have yet to start your research, I see a number of options available to you.

1. Having identified the ideal supervisor/department, enquire as to whether they would be amenable to applying for funding for this piece of work. Standard studentships cannot often be applied for directly from funders by PhD students, but there are a range of ways of funding research.

2. Get a research assistant job as an intro to practical research, and to embed yourself within a relevant department. It would make the funding application process potentially more likely to be successful if you applied for PhD funding as an existing member of a department.

3. Consider whether you're approaching the right people. While mental health/psychology researchers may be the most interested in the end product, you might be best off carrying out that research in a bio-computing/health informatics department. An ideal set up might be to have a primary supervisor who was focussed on your methods, and a secondary supervisor who could give you the health expertise angle.

4. Be willing to be a little flexible with your ideas/proposals. It's rare for a PhD project to end up along exactly the same lines as the initial proposal, so it's good to get used to letting go a little, so as to adapt to the potential paths available to you.

Good luck

Just to introduce a note of caution...

It can be hard to predict how a PhD will turn out. Your current supervisor may improve as he adjusts to his role. Your old MSc supervisor might not turn out to be so great for a PhD (or may leave the uni, or acquire more responsibilities, which reduce the time he is available to help you). So there is no guarantee you'd be better off by switching. Also be aware that this might lead to a negative perception of you in your current department (though whether this matters in the long term may depend on the size/nature of your field). The worst scenario would be for your to apply for the other PhD, NOT get it, and then your existing supervisor to find out - could be very awkward.

Sorry to be a little negative, but I think these are factors that might need some consideration.

I am very sorry to hear of your situation Kraken. May I ask whether you took up the offer of counselling when it was made to you previously?

I can see that finishing your PhD is very important to you, but so is your health, so please don't jeopardise that for the sake of your studies.

If you are based in the UK, I don't think you could be asked to leave if a health problem has affected your progress. You may wish to invite someone else along to this meeting, such as a postgraduate tutor, though do let your supervisors know first.

Just to add - I looked back to your original thread (I remembered answering on it first time around) and I think the advice that people gave that you won't find an MSc on this topic still stands. I do think there is definitely potential for PhD research in this area (assuming your existing training has adequately prepared you for a PhD), but it's probably just a case of not having found quite the right people to contact yet.

Sorry to here you've not had much luck so far. Where did you approach?

Some suggestions:
(i) if an email doesn't get a response, do follow it up with a further email or a phone call. Academics are busy people, stuff gets lost in their inboxes, particularly if received around June-Aug (conference/holiday/planning for the new year season).
(ii) Follow up the one that said there was no funding. If they are genuinely interested in your topic, they may support you in obtaining funding in the future.
(iii) Be prepared to be a little adaptable in your topic. There are ways of making a topic 'fit' in with an existing research agenda, and then evolve it into a direction more to your interests. But it does need a bit of creativity and flexibility to do this.
(iv) consider contacting relevant charities (such as Mind) so see if they have a list of researchers/departments where they know relevant research is being carried out. They may even have their own research funding programmes.

Good luck with your search.

This might not help given your sign off name, but in the UK there is such a thing as a 'Postgraduate Certificate of Higher Education' (PGCHE). UK researchers who want to lecture are sometimes encouraged to take that course. It might be worth seeing whether such things are available internationally via distance learning, though it would be worth checking out whether it would be valued/recognised where you are.

As others have said, it's common to feel overwhelmed at the start of the PhD. It's a challenging thing to do, and it makes you realise how little you know about anything!

In general, supervisors have a reasonable idea of what is achievable in the time available. That said, sometimes they can be a little unrealistic/overambitious. Do you have a second supervisor and does s/he agree with the proposal? If you're unsure whether it's achievable, perhaps you and your supervisor could put together a timetable of how the work should be completed, at least for the first year? It might help you see what the workload would be like.

Finally, would it be possible to have a contingency plan in case this proposal is over-ambitious. For example, would a comparison of 3 countries give you enough work for a PhD? If so, then aim for comparison of 5-6 countries, but identify 3 to focus on first that provide sufficient contrast for your comparative analysis.

Good luck

Whereas my uni I think the boundary for a distinction was 80%, and anything other than that was a pass. So it really does vary.

That sounds like a good plan B to have. Unfortunately quite a lot of people go into PhDs with no idea of how bad the job market is at the other end, so it's good to be prepared.