Hi guys,
Only joined this forum now.
Apologies for the long post.

Need your help

Background:

B.E. Biomedical Engineering, India - 7.1/10
M.Sc., UK - 1:1, Distinction, batch topper, top 3% across the faculty.

Work experiences - about 3 years including research projects during master's study; varied; best of experiential learning across startup, research institutions and multinational organizations. Selected into the best of programmes with an intake rate of about 0.25 % of nationwide applicants.

My chances?

Interests:

Design thinking in medical devices/healthcare innovation
Frugal innovation
Innovation management

Objectives:
In a broad sense, I wish to research upon the following:

Understanding how design thinking can foster innovation ( preferably frugal, for its own advantages) leading to better clinical outcomes.

Now this could obviously have multiple focus areas/approaches.

Questions:

1. I have identified a few researchers at Cambridge whose work closely aligns with my research interests. Therein lies the confusion; while it is possible to have a couple supervisors for your PhD, how to choose the PI?

Also, one of them (the leader of the research theme and interests in this area) is very well known. Though an assumption, it stands to reason that he wouldn't have as much time to supervise one's research as another supervisor with say, lesser commitments.

In that case, how do I proceed with this?

2. Being an international applicant, funding support is indispensable. As such, would appreciate your suggestions on Gates Cambridge, Commonwealth and other scholarships.

3. I have had basic introduction to writing research proposals, ethics proposals, Literature reviews, etc. while working on my dissertations (three in all). However, it would be nice to hear your thoughts on the exact flowchart, if you will, of events - from initiating discussion with a potential supervisor to subsequent discussions leading upto agreement on a more consolidated research plan (of course, it's likely to evolve as the research progresses).

4. One of my (strong interest) areas of research proposals closely matches work that his PhD student had done long ago. Is it a good/bad/ugly thing?

Cheers

hi, welcome to the Forum. OK I do my best to help --

1. yes it is possible to have more than one supervisor for our PHD, usually the PI is the one who is your main supervisor - and he is usually the one who has applied for the grant (which supports the project)

2. If I were you, I would go and look at all the scholarship websites, and look for those covering my area, see their eligibility criteria, you post this question here, it is hard for people to help you, you need to look by yourself

3. don't really understand this question -- if I am not mistaken, it's like this -- you have a research idea (or you may NOT have an idea), you either look for a scholarship offering that project OR you write to a professor and talk about what you want to do etc., then discuss, then apply, then get interview, then PASS the interview, get offer letter, then your research plan is worked on IN FULL, and you start your phd -- register at uni etc.

4. its not a bad thing, you just need to highlight what are the DIFFERENCES in your research, what more do you bring to the field, what else can you show - even though this work has been done before by his phd student.

hope this helps, and have a nice day
love satchi

Thanks, Satchi. Appreciate.
Actually, wrt Q2, I was seeking inputs from people who might have had experience applying to one of these scholarships that I've mentioned :)

Well your appliction sounds mildly cretinous.

Please accept my apologies, I must have totally misread it. It doesn't sound particularly cretinous after all! Good luck with it.

Hi Sainno,

I can't offer much help, but from what I have seen, you will be in a better position if you already have the funding and apply to be accepted as a PhD candidate. It is not easy to get international funding through the university.

Just a warning, Cam has a weird centralised system of assigning students to supervisors (so you might end up in another group). Also, I would encourage you to apply to other unis too, imperial for example is probably strong in this area.

You can also increase your chances of being accepted somewhere if you have publications or do a master (and do well) so they wanna keep you around.

Good luck.