Academia is based on meritocracy and though there is snobbishness towards former polytechnics, they will respect you if you do good research. I think the trick is do good research, go to conferences, publish, make good connections, get more publications, post-doc at a better uni, do more good research, succeed. You do have to work harder than students at more well funded universities but you should focus on what you can do (good research!) instead of missed opportunities.

This happened at my uni, I am at the main branch and they closed the satellite branch. They set a cut off date and you either stayed until you finished or were moved to the other branch. Literally one day 15 PhD students turned up. I think something similar will happen with you, either you will stay or be expected to move. Though London to Liverpool is a big change and I would talk with your supervisor about their thoughts. They might not want to move and you could probably follow them.

I felt the same way when i started. Which is why I took so long to post, as I am still not sure if I have resolved this issue myself. The main thing I can say is you are not alone and quite a lot of PhD students have similar problems at some point. Impostor syndrome and loneliness are too major issues with postgraduate reserach that only get mentioned after you start feeling them.

My advice is be brave and just put yourself out there. Once you do it once or twice it becomes easier and you rebuild confidence in yourself. It is easy to build a wall around your work as you wait to perfect it but the best way to improve your work is to show it to other people. Generic university conferences or department conferences are great ways to share your work as the questions are not too difficult and rather generic. Also talking with every research student you can find helps in the long term. I know more people in other departments than my own and you can rebuild your friend network. Losing old friends is part of life and the only real solution is make new friends.

Tudor_Queen, did you use the discussion chapter to talk do a meta analysis of your work or just discuss the work in general? I am thinking of doing something similar but not sure if I can use that discussion chapter to make new conclusions or do I have to stick strictly to my chapters.

Not to sound unethical but are you sure that this guy is manipulating data? This is a serious allegation and your colleagues appear to have casually accepted it. Have they not had the same ethical conundrum? I also find it hard to believe that these people are just handing over data and are not asking questions about it changing. The others here are right on how to go about changing supervisor but are you making this decision on hearsay?

Again not to sound unethical but I think this is a lot more common than people think and something needs to be said about it. I have tried my utter best to replicate some high tier papers and cannot replicate their results. My results are always 10-15% lower and I have tried other papers that also have impossibly high figures. Fortunately my work is a novel combination of two different projects and such I don't have to compete directly with previous literature. However there is pressure on other researchers when publishing to be better than previous works, that may be fabricated, and causing ethical people to struggle. So once someone is unethical it is easier to also be unethical than to call out that first person.

If you are a early career researcher, in order to publish you have to compete with unethical people or perish. My supervisor has asked me to "polish" my data once or twice and I have flatly refused. Which in hindsight has made my PhD a bit more difficult as I have had to push the novelty of my work that bit harder instead of just being incremental. I honestly believe that a lot of "super star" researchers "polish" data, at least occasionally, because they always seem to get 1-2 high tier papers from every grant. Which is simply not possible as research is inherently risky.

Or this might just be me projecting my own insecurity about my lab skills at 11pm on Monday night.

This is a really delicate issue and I do not envy you. I am just curious what is the relationship between Departments A and PT, in particular your current supervisors and the new ones. As if you can make the supervisors talk between themselves about this, it takes you out of the middle. I also think you should consider your PhD funding. Is it internal funding, your supervisors funding or a direct grant? As if it is the first two options, you don't really have a say and is a good excuse to turn down department PT.

There is a difference between a call for abstracts and a call for papers. You should not submit two conference papers as it wastes peoples time. However if it is just an abstract to decide who should presents, there should be no double submission issues. As it is very common to present a preliminary work at a conference to get feedback before submitting to a prestigious journal. Or for someone presents work which was recently published in journal.

I have results now but 6 months ago it was bit hairy. My project has two distinct parts in different field and I was massively behind in one. I am ahead in the other part but I submitted a couple of abstracts assuming that both parts would go according to plan. Fortunately it was only a flash presentation (2 mins) and a poster.

I agree with Tudor_Queen, sounds like minor corrections unless there is some other issue.

You can submit the same abstract to two conferences as long as there is no associated conference paper. There are some professors who present the same work for several years and get away with it. I think it is different if you have to submit a paper alongside it. In which case you can submit an abstract to both and choose between them later.

I have submitted several abstracts without results where I just talk about the potential and methodology. I don't specifically say that there are no results and have been accepted several times with this method. However it can get a bit messy if you don't get the results on time and you have to wing it.

GSK has sites across Cumbria (mostly Carlisle), AstraZeneca has a large base in Macclesfield, Sanofi has sites in Cheshire, Sheffield and Newcastle while in Liverpool Allergan and Eli Lilly have significant research facilities in Liverpool. The water companies United Utilities, Yorkshire water and Northumbrian water all have large water testing facilities which include microbiology. There is also a range of small medium sized companies across the North of England. So don't think there are no jobs in the North.

Go to some conferences. You can talk with experts there and get real feedback. They will be interested in your work and their questions will make you consider your work in different ways. You can also see what is hot in your field and what sort of standards you need to follow. So instead of relying on your university for guidance you make your own network.

I am very sorry to hear this and it does not sound fair at all. If they don't give you a third chance you should appeal. As after the first viva they gave you feedback and you delivered the changes. Then they failed you a second time for a completely different reason and admitted they failed you the first time for these previously unspecified reasons. Therefore their feedback was not appropriate and purposefully mislead you. You should be allowed to try the exam again now that you have the true

I think you should contact the students union and the postgraduate support team (or similar). As well as record all interactions with them. I wish you the best of luck.

I felt the same way and got through it. My interdisciplinary project is awful and borderline impossible from a methodology perspective (we don't have the right equipment). My research would be phenomenally better with better equipment and I know someone in another uni will repeat my work to a better standard. Which is a bit of a bummer as I know my work will be insignificant in the long term (like most research). Yet I kept asking myself what else would I be doing instead of a PhD. I looked for jobs at one point and realised that I was in the field in that I wanted to be in. I know my job prospects are bleak but I will have a PhD in the relevant field which counts for something.

There is nothing wrong with looking around and considering your options. You have probably realised that you don't like academic life, which is more than fine. Most PhD students get tired of academia and worry about jobs afterwards. I think there is nothing wrong with considering your options and deciding if finishing your PhD is the best decision. Though if you are doing well with your PhD you can always aim to finish early and move on with your life.

Do you like philosophy enough to spend 3 years studying it? I would seriously consider doing a masters in philosophy or a double masters in philosophy and something else, before doing a PhD in it.