Admin aren't on here constantly, so you probably need to wait to Monday to see the outcome, but somehow I doubt they are going to side with you, AndrewPetelov. Fled has made many useful contributions to this forum, and I'm sure they will recognise that.

I think we now know the real reason that AndrewPetelov has struggled to find academic work outside of his university...

But the post before your comment about HR was mine, so what are you on about?

Haha I was wondering that too!

I've got your Rawcliffe article. PM me your email and I will send it to you.

If you want all the articles in that issue let me know.

And in reading your post (quickly) I didn't spot a single error so I wouldn't worry about the fact you are not a native English speaker! Your writing is practically perfect. I wouldn't have known you weren't British.

Reading it again I can see a few grammatical errors, but you would quickly learn to fix these; they are very minor.

The actual research is no different whether in the UK or the US so I'm not sure what you are on about tbh. You are a PhD student in both countries, not a research assistant. Like I said, the UK does not have PhD classes in the same way that the US does.

You have the same freedom to work on what you want and work when you want in both countries. There will be differences in lab/uni/supervisor/student ethic but it is not country specific.

Whether you are self-funded or grant-funded, the process is the same...

I think you might be a bit confused...

I think if you've got an MA in history it wouldn't matter so much if you have a BA in geography. You could look for history conversions courses to find it easier to get on the MA. Bear in mind, funded history PhDs are hard to find, and academic jobs afterwards even more so.

Some supervisors have preferences for certain conferences and won't be encouraging if you suggest to go to a different one, so that could be the issue.

Your conference budget is usually separate to your stipend and lab budget, so running out of money shouldn't be a problem. They won't tell you to pay an extra month fees. Firstly, I've never heard of this and secondly, they are more likely to just not pay you for a month if this were a problem. But since university budgets for fees etc are managed centrally I don't think this is a possibility. Can you find out from your sponsor if there is a separate budget?

Ok, so your lab members don't sound great, but it's probably because they are all friends and you haven't jointed their 'group', since you only speak to them about work. Try asking them how their weekend was, or just making small talk. You will probably find it works wonders. In my experience, when people are perceived to not want to fully integrate into a group, people wonder why. They think it's because the person doesn't like them. Try to make an effort to get along with some of them (pick the nicest person first) and see if it makes a difference.

If you really can't bear to talk to them, then you will have to find a way to ignore them. You could seek advice from your university counselling service to help find a way that would work for you.

In biology, we would just cite upcoming articles as 'in press' and quote the DOI. Journals often state somewhere on the article how to cite it when it is available online prior to official publication.

Sure, I have sympathy for people with issues, but he's been looking at other people's work so he can't be that bad can he? I think that's the point. Like Ellebelle said, if you can't do it, say you can't do it, don't pretend you will.

It's kind of usual practice to not have your grant code for your exclusive use. For example, I'm sure some lab equipment and general consumables are purchased from other grant codes and you use them.

It's also common for you to submit a proposal, be accepted on that basis, and then work on something completely different. I'm not saying it's right, just that it happens a lot. Actually, what's important is that you have clear goals and are working to achieve them, so it doesn't matter if this is your proposed project or in something else.

Also, you should have money set aside from your funding for conferences. The department doesn't have to pay for you. They don't have to pay for other students either, and whilst it might seem unfair that they do so, perhaps they are funded directly by the department, or perhaps they are getting their money from travel grants they have applied to, or perhaps this was agreed when they started.

Have you considered whether it is your approach to others that could be annoying people? The reason I say this is because it's quite unusual to have your both supervisors and your lab colleagues making life difficult for you. Running to your supervisor about lab issues obviously antagonises people in the lab, for example. I think if you accept that things aren't as the way you want them to be in terms of access to money and so forth, you might find that your PhD goes a bit more smoothly. I expect part of it is due to cultural differences and I understand that that can make it especially difficult to overcome. Are there any other students or staff you could talk to about this and see what they suggest?

Can't get it from my current institution. I think they subscribe to about 2 journals...

To be honest, it doesn't really matter whether you submit by the deadline or not - it's not your fault and the admin team and exams office will understand. It's the department and your supervisor that will look bad, because they have to have 80% of students submitting within the deadline. It's some sort of requirement for funding.

You could ask your other supervisor if it is worth letting the relevant people know that your submission may be late.