I would be grateful for your opinions:

When I first started my PhD 3 years ago, I ended up with a large list of supervisors attached to my research. They've listed me reasons so I assumed it made sense. I have 5 of them and to be honest I don't even understand why the most of them are there. They do nothing,I never see them etc. I asked to remove 2 of these supervisors. My directory of studies agreed to remove one of them, but I still have one supervisor on my list that is just a name for me. He has nothing to do with my research, I don't even need him for official reasons because I checked the regulations and he is not needed for his research experience or the number of PhDs he supervised in the past etc. So I want to talk to my director of studies and explain again the fact that I do not want more than 3 people on my supervisory list. But I want to go to him with proper reasons, rather than my instincts about it.

What do you think about having this many supervisors on a PhD candidate's supervisory team?

I thought the regulations were that you only had 2: first and second supervisor? I also have an informal industrial supervisor who makes requests and gives lots of invaluable advice, but I only have the two offical supervisors. I think you run the risk of being pulled in too many directions if you have more than that.

I also have 5, 2 of them are based at other unis. I have found it useful to have other input. 1 of my distance ones is fantastic and the other i have very little contact with. It might be worthwhile to keep him there and should the situation arise where he might be useful to you. I doesn't hurt to have extras there, unless you feel pulled in different direcitons. You could email him directly and tell him about your work so far and see if he seems keen to be involved or not?

thank you rah and juno. My 5th one is external too. Because the other 3 were completely irrelevant to my research, I contacted her and applied to the committee for her to be in the team. Not only she is a lovely person but she does most of the supervisory work and helps me a lot with her constructive criticism and advice. Do you think I would be rude if I emailed the irrelevant supervisor and inform him about my feelings? It is funny that he emailed me first time in 3 years asking how the work is going, after I asked for him to be removed from my list. But he is not removed from the list. I have nothing against him but he is not really necessary on my team therefore I feel awkward about it.

I guess the risk of upsetting them potentially is worse than living with them, so if it were me i'd just leave it as it is and not worry about it too much. If you are really not happy with it, then why not email them and as polietly and tactfully as possible say that you feel you have a lot of members on your committee etc?
Good luck

thanks rah. I know it's going to sound strange or silly. But won't I need to name this supervisor on my acknowledgements page or any other section of my thesis? I'm sure even then I will feel really strange.

yes you probably will need to acknowledge them, but probably only once. What does your main supervisor think? If you know you are going to keep them you could contact them and get them to work for it a bit. Get them to read your thesis and give you feeback or something.

Hi 404,
I sympathise and have been there myself - i was initially given 4 supervisors, because the uni screwed up in allocation. It wasn't even as though i was being pulled in 4 different directions exactly, more the principle of the thing - i just felt i needed a tighter team with fewer hangers-on, if that makes sense?
I manged to drop one after my first year, but that was due to luck. My protestations fell on deaf ears because it suited the dept to give me four, although it didn't suit me.

zelda, thank you for your answer. I am sorry to hear you are in a similar situation. I guess it is a bit too late for me, as this is my 3rd year. It is very annoying to be part of something that you didn't plan in the first place. I know that my University allows max 3 supervisors but more if the reasons can be justified. And my director of studies included this person's name on my list in the first place (they are good friends). I can't really understand the small-office politics.

I'm guessing that its something along the lines of it being good for one's academic career to have a PhD student to supervise, plus lecturers get time off undergrad teaching (ours get 45 hours per annum) to supervise a PhD student, and so if they don't put much effort into it, they're onto a winner. Sad, but probably true....

I guess there are pros and cons involved in many or few supervisors. I have three internal and one external. The three internal are all very pro-active whilst taking great care not to disagree or give conflicting advice. The external is one of the leading practitioners in my field and is invaluable. I think standards of supervision are generally good in my faculty, however fellow students with only two supervisors (the minimum here) can sometimes end up with none available if one is, say on study leave and the other on holiday.

Having said that, my external supervisor told me of one of his students who ditched him in the final year of his PhD. He felt it had been a great deal of work supporting this student and then he didn't get any credit at the end. So, it must be possible to sever the links with a supervisor.

I can see that you wouldn't want to acknowledge somebody who had been no help at all to you.

But there are ways and ways of acknowledging someone aren't there. I'm planning this already, what to say in my acknowledgments to incude a sup while making clear that they didnt contribute anything to the thesis.

In my case, I'm hoping this sup might prove useful as a reference (being better known than either of my other ones who do contribute). But unless a sup is actively hindering things, is it worth the hassle of dumping them, with possible ill feeling etc?

I have two University and two industrial supervisors, and I suppose I'm quite lucky that they all have different areas of expertise, and sometimes suggest angles that the other supervisors don't. And even if I only see the industrial supervisors every few months at least I know they're there if I ened them. So it works for me because they're not treading on each other's toes too much.