Hi,

My PhD involved conducting a piece of research that was part funded by a local council; as part of that I've published my first 'first author' paper in an international peer reviewed journal, presented the work internationally, nationally and locally and done a load of poster presentations and written up a report for local organisations to share.

One of my supervisors who is based at the council organisation sort of signed me up to speak at a conference without asking me about it first/letting me know any details. She's not been very 'present' within the PhD (I basically get the idea that she's there to have her name on something - she doesn't come to any meetings and didn't even proof read my final manuscript). I've been struggling with my mental health recently, having a recent bereavement and coming towards the end of my PhD funding and the stresses that involves. I think it will take a lot of time to prepare for the presentation and most of the audience will be aware of the work already, it's getting published and I just don't feel like I could cope with the anxiety of presenting at the moment so it's not something I want to do right now. I emailed my supervisor to say I wouldn't be able to attend but I'm more than happy if she (who is also presenting) wanted some of my slides and she can include it in her talk. She sent me a pretty arsey email after that and copied in my other two supervisors (one of them agreed I shouldn't present; the other more senior supervisor wasn't aware of it)...

Was I out of line in cancelling? I know they part funded the work but I feel I've done quite a lot of research dissemination already to make it worthwhile!

Nope. You were entirely within your rights to say no.
I would have done the same. I would have emailed her and said "Unfortunately I will not be available blah blah blah". I wouldn't have justified it either by talking about why. If I was asked directly I would say I simply wasn't interested and I would assertively repeat that line until she backed off.
I would also ignore the email from that supervisor and play a passive aggressive role as regards this presentation. BUT. I would have talked to my main supervisor first to advise that I was going to say no to the second supervisor.

I have never been told to do something though. My supervisor simply would never have done that. He'd have asked and possibly strongly recommended a particular thing but he'd never have simply told me it was happening without talking to me first.
I am in the incredibly fortunate position of having a face like thunder when I am deeply focussed so it makes people naturally wary of me :-D
Saved me a lot of hassle :-D

This council worker is not your supervisor but you funder. You can say no once, but don't expect them to give you or your university money/support in the near future. But it probably won't affect your PhD in the longterm, so don't lose any sleep over it.

Can I also say, I think you underestimate the importance of conferences. I don't read every paper in my field so just publishing is not enough. Conferences are great at disseminating your research to be people in related areas or non-academic jobs. You can highlight you work and disseminate it to an completely different audience.

If you don't feel like you can handle it right now then you did exactly the right thing in cancelling. I disagree with the others here. People cancel things all the time... how many conferences have you attended where a presented isn't there for whatever reason and so the programme is slightly amended (I've seen this multiple times and I have only attended a few conferences). It would be an issue if you kept cancelling and cancelled multiple different things. No one is going to remember this in a few months from now (that's if they even remember it now). Also, sounds like you've done a fab piece of research for it to involve such wide dissemination! All the best.
Tudor

I also disagree with the others here, nothing is more important than your mental health. You have suffered a recent bereavement , cancelling is the most responsible thing to do if you're feeling fragile. Don't let others tell you otherwise! It's not as big a deal as some people think. It won't affect anything. Take care :)

And I'm sure your arsey supervisor has had to cancel something before x