How far did you progress with your research? As if you nearly finished it might be easier to approach your old supervisor and discuss part-time study.

I should have phrased my previous comment better. The sentiment I was trying to express was that if the PhD is composed of published material, the structure and minor details matter slightly less. The examiners during your viva will consider that your work has already been successfully peer reviewed and be less inclined to reject you over minor issues. I was not suggesting PhD by publication but suggesting that you should be confident in your own decisions. So if you think that your published work validates your framework, the examiners will unlikely to unreasonably reject it.

When I started my PhD, a professor gave me some advice, "publish 3 papers before your viva and no-one can fail you". I think that is the most applicable advice here. As if your work is published in peer-reviewed journals you have a lot more freedom to do what you think is appropriate.

I don't think you need to prepare that much. You don't start until October and he won't expect you to do much work before then. If he contacted you he will probably have a plan for what he will discuss, just go along with what he says.

If you think it is good enough and it will benefit someone, don't give up. I know in my field books are by invitation or application but fairly regular. The books associated with the top journals are usually invite only but you might be able email someone inquiring. Some of the book series have a common associate editor across multiple editions and might be helpful. While some of smaller journals openly advertise calls for book chapters, where you submit an abstract related to the book theme. However my field has a rather active book market.

PS: My only experience with book chapters; was when a reader in my department invited me to submit an abstract to a book he was editor of and then rejected my abstract.

I am having the same problem. I am also mainly experimental and am at a total loss of what to do. I think I have lost my work routine and default to being lazy around the house. I am going back to my parents for a few weeks to find a new rhythm and work/life balance. I will tell you if I have any success.

Accept it and politely withdraw if you need to.

Thee repercussions of leaving a PhD are minimal and you funding can be recyled. The supervisor might be a bit annoyed but the academic world is huge and there is very little they can do, especially if it is another country. Although having a guaranteed PhD offer must be a relief and congratulations! Goodluck!

Coronavirus is kinda a big deal at the minute and people love to read, talk, moan, complain and celebrate coronavirus/lockdown. So literally anything with coronavirus in it is relevant and you don't need to be too picky with your coronavirus topic. I would recommend focusing on a topic you are interested in and tack on coronavirus somewhere (preferably in the introduction). However if you want something more long term, do a meta analysis of coronoavirus in your chosen topic. As coronavirus analysis is such a novel topic, you can probably research whatever you want.

Email or call them back and ask for feedback. They may say no but you may also get very useful feedback on what you are missing.

I might not be the best person to give advice on computer science. However you won't find a PhD topic by reading a broad range of papers and hoping for inspiration. You need to have a deep understanding of one topic to properly develop a research question and understand what is feasible. A PhD thesis only needs to incrementally find new knowledge and I think you should be looking for small problems that have already been partially explored.

I understand you feel limited by your prior knowledge but I know a scary number of cross-disciplinary PhD students who have done PhDs in subjects unrelated to their Bachelors/Masters. From talking with them, they feel lost at the start but after a couple years working on one topic, they learn what they need to know. You are not expected to be an expert on the field when you start but you just have to be committed enough to follow it through. As most PhD students are not productive until they have already spent 1-2 years working on their project.

Goodluck!

I wouldn't worry as a small flaw will not invalidate the whole thesis. The data may be slightly skewed but still usable as it will not significantly alter the conclusions. If the examiners mention it you can just acknowledge it, say you would have done it differently with hindsight and then explain how small of an affect it will have. No thesis project is perfect and understanding the limitations of your work is a key part of a viva.

Goodluck!

If you want to game the system, you need to do a lot more research. I agree that there are a lot of underrated universities that might be easier to get into. However the underrated universities will have specialities in different fields, subfields, or specific topics. My university has world class lung function group in an otherwise mediocre life science department. That trend will be replicated throughout Europe; mediocre university but contains a couple of world class research groups.

So if you want to game the system; choose a topic, research it extensively, look at the university affiliations on highly cited papers and then apply there. I don't agree with this strategy but it might work.

Are you talking about a Data Management plan? I hear they can be an utter pain but you can copy the structure from other postgrad students.