Hello everyone, forgive my first post for sounding stupid but I am in the following situation. I currently work in a forensic field and I have be placed in a specific area for which I have researched and developed a series of knowledge which I deemed to be unique. My boss then suggested that I maybe look into a pHD opportunity in my subject area however I am a bit concerned about the following. I have spent the last years studying this area myself and produced research for my company. However I do not really want to start my PHD and find that I have to wait years to achieve it starting from scratch when I have already done a lot of the work so far. Is there away around my situation or should i just bite the bullet, sign up for a PHD at a local uni i previously graduate and start my research again? I feel like I have already done some good work (in my opinion for my field) and I guess I would just like to see if I can be credited for it

Thanks for any views on my topic

Having done just the same thing, in that I also developed some unique methods,(although this is not the area I'm researching in now) I would say that the two are different in that for the PhD you really need to know more than just your particular 'discovery', you must know a lot more about the background, who has said what before, how it relates to your stuff, what similar research is being done and how it relates to your work etc. - you, of course may have more closely considered other work in your field, but I did not do this with mine, the only other way to do it is by publication, and is a different thing entirely. I also think the whole PhD experience is one worth embracing if you get the chance.

Thanks for your reply and I have consider outside reasearch which was tied in with my developements which again made me think about a PHD. I do want the PHD experiance but its the length of time that is putting me off as i feel like I have already put my time in and i didnt really want to uneccesarily extend it. Hmmm i think im going to have to have a think about it

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This is an interesting question - I have heard that in some cases, the PhD supervisor does next to nothing anyway and the student basically does it on their own. It seems to me then that in theory the same student could produce a PhD thesis with little or no formal supervision, in which case the student might only need to be registered for a few months or simply to submit his thesis for marking. I can't see what would be wrong with that, so I would be interested to know what the universities have to say about this. Of course the student might overestimate their ability and the thesis might fail but that is a different question. Surely the question for the PhD examiners is 'does the thesis achieve the required standard?' not 'how much formal supervision has the student had?'

Most universities have a minimum registration period before submission... I don't think it's possible to register as a PhD student and submit a thesis after only a few months.