So you mean you've started a part time non funded PhD and you don't have any other source of income?

I think you need to quit or at least defer until you can find a job and then decide if you want to continue with a PhD you have lost interest in.

Stationary is provided by department for free, I've only ever used 2 or 3 books which I got from the library or my supervisor, conference costs including food and transport were covered by supervisor, university or from applying to travel grants from societies... so in short, no extra costs for the PhD were ever borne by me.

In some cases students have had to pay to print their theses, but mine were paid for by supervisor.

Oh, maybe graduation? Hire of gowns and the like. I did have to pay for that.

Are you sure you can't locate your MA supervisor somehow? If not, I think it's fine to get a reference from your education tutor, or from a manager, if you have one. Often there is quite a lot of leniency with references. For my PhD, I really doubt they contacted my referees at all.

I've also tried to find conference proceedings before and I've concluded they probably weren't digitised and uploaded in the early days so that's why only later versions are online.

Sometimes I've found random articles online, but I think this is where authors have scanned their article in the proceedings and uploaded them.

I would contact the organisations directly yeah, maybe they've got extra copies they can send or scan.

In my postdoc role, my job description said "Research 90%, conferences 5% and supervision of PhD students 5% of time".

I think most should be including EU students as well? Are you sure this is not the case?

Almost everyone worries they aren't good enough and they can't do it, but the good news is most people can. The question is whether you want to continue. Do you?

Learning is half the outcome of a PhD - you are not supposed to know everything when you start, and as long as you were honest in your interview, your supervisors wouldn't expect you to know everything anyway.

If the work is nothing to do with your PhD or postdoc and you do it in your own time, it will be your copyright.

Check whether your new department can email existing students - often people rent out spare rooms quickly for short term with no contracts etc

Wait a few more days and send another chaser email. What do you supervisors think?

That's generally how it goes. You need to ask for the support you want but most of the time you work independently. If you want regular weekly meetings for example, ask for them, and set the agenda if that's what you want to so. It's probably best to look elsewhere for emotional support, such as other postgrad students, your friends, family or university student support or counselling services.

Ok, the point of the PhD is that you should be developing ideas and projects to work on. It's helpful if your supervisor gives you papers to read but he doesn't have to. I think my supervisor gave me like 2 papers when I started and then I just found everything else myself. It's part of the learning process. Read about your topic and start formulating ideas to work on, then see what your supervisor thinks.

Really sorry to hear this Anz07. Really hope this gets sorted soon with the best possible outcome for you.

I think you should ask your supervisor whether with two case studies you run the risk of being told at viva you don't have enough data for a PhD thesis.

You might also want to consider getting an extension. Sounds like you've still got a lot of work to do over the next two months otherwise. Or ask for reduced hours at work, or take holoday, or ask for unpaid leave if you can afford it.