@All

I do appreciate all your help and comments and I have no intention of going down without a fight. I have no real choice than to wait until Christmas to find out what the material is and then rewrite. I will use the time producing another 2 papers, which don't rely on the XRD and I had planned an extended literature review to be published separately.

My papers and thesis will have to wait until the data is available and I will have to apply for an extension, which they will have to give me or I really will document all the things my supervisor has done over the last 4 years, send it to the sponsors and to hell with it!

If it takes me another year, it may not look good on my CV, but at least I will have good papers which will hopefully secure me a good post-doc.

@29200

Thanks for the support, but don't be too hard on Dunham - he's just trying to offer the advice he thinks is correct.

@Mackem_Beefy

You are correct, I had no control over the XRD. All samples were labelled correctly and the error is without doubt with the XRD lab and my supervisor. I have a clear email stating the samples were the correct material and after the paper was rejecting a mumbling email saying they may not have been the correct material. In my uni, the XRD department is strictly controlled with no access to other students, so no chance of actually watching how things are done. It's the same with SEM etc.

I appreciate the rest of your comments and I agree I think I can salvage something, I'm just not sure it's going to be good enough for a successful career in academia.

@TreeOfLife

My supervisor definitely knew the data was false and told me "everybody does it"!

@Mackem_Beefy

<blockquote> If you didn't spot the data was wrong before sending it, were you sufficiently sure of the data or have sufficient knowledge of what it meant or indicated? </blockquote>

Accepted, however, when I queried the validity of the XRD, I was told the reason there were discrepancies was because of the particular angel of measurement, so I trusted the word of both the XRD department and y supervisor.

@Rinal

At the moment my supervisor is saying no. If he doesn't change his mind I am going to go over his head on the basis I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

@Dunham,

If I could find out what the material is, I could withdraw my first paper, rewrite and submit both papers with the new material. The problem is I am not allowed to go direct to the XRD department (university rules) and even if they are able to update the database, they won't have it before Christmas - my submission is in February (guess I'll need another extension!)

I'm trawling the available databases to see if I can identify the material so I can have a head start - not everything is available for free online.

@TreeOfLife

I accept that, although we are not allowed access to the XRD lab or the person who carries out all the XRD projects, even if you want to discuss the results - it's a strange university! I have recently emailed the XRD lab behind my supervisors back, and they have said there original data showed it may have been the material I was expecting or may not. My supervisor changed this to "it is".

@Dunham

I really wanted a career in academia and you have confirmed by worst fears.

My supervisors reaction was for me to produce more material and see if that was the right one, then submit it as the original material to the journal that has just rejected! I've refused to do this, although I am going to re-run the experiments in October.

The frustrating thing is I have my own original idea that I want to do as a post-doc at a different university. My interview with the new university went really well and a position was there subject to PhD success.

The other frustrating thing is I have a material that works really well under industrial conditions that I know could be successful, but the XRD department don't know what it is and won't be updating their XRD database until after Christmas.

Part of me thinks just give up and get a job as a lab technician and the other part of me thinks I should fight, because I think I have something. I'm sure every student thinks they have something, but my latest paper reviewers also think I have something interesting.

Thank you both for the responses

My main supervsior, using XRD, told me a material I had produced, tested and had working for gas separation was the material I was expecting. On the basis of this I was able to produce the first of 4 papers in a high impact journal (accepted). My second paper was rejected because the reviewers stated the material was incorrect (although they said the data was very interesting and novel).

After checking with the XRD department, my supervisor told me it wasn't the material I was expecting, so I have lost the 2nd paper, will lose the 3rd and 4th paper and will have to withdraw my 1st paper. My thesis is based is based on my papers and I had planned an extensive literature review as a separate publication.

Essentially I have nothing after 4.5 years of hard work.

I could go on about my supervisors lack of ethics etc, but there's no point (he sent me to a conference with falsified data, amongst other things).

What's next?

Should I quit and find a new PhD (it will be pointless reporting him) and if so, how do i explain my lack of anything substantial after 4.5 years?

TIA