The PhD project I've been looking at has an industry-funded stipend attached to it. The project falls under a big research group that is fully funded by some multinationals. There are quite a few PhD projects running under that group, all of them multidisciplinary, all very exciting. I wonder whether under these circumstances it is possible to negotiate about the stipend, or whether the research council minimum stipend is what I need to accept?

Thanks a lot.

You probably could negotiate it but are you sure you would want to risk alienating your supervisors at this early stage?

I would negotiate for every job, hence my question whether this is possible or generally not done.

I've never heard of anyone doing it, hence my answer.

It's not a good idea to get off on the wrong foot with your supervisors, since they have the power to help make or break your future career, and they may not care if you query the stipend, but on the other hand they might. Why would they pay you more when they could pay someone else less? Why give the PhD to the student who queries the money and risk that they query future lab budgets and conference funding?

Because I'm the only candidate, could start tomorrow with what a leaving postdoc left behind, and have a lot of background knowledge already. I could get started much quicker and provide results much quicker. Oh, and I looked into subsets of this specific question before and at least did research into analogues before. Plus, given my experience in managing large projects the risk of the project running in completely the wrong direction is somewhat smaller :) But ok, I get your message.

I don't think the research council stipend can be increased. But there's no harm in asking I suppose.

It's not a research council stipend, but industry funded. I suppose the participating universities get a pile of money for all research and divide it up into projects, conference participtions, etc. The stipend is supposed to be at the same level as a research council stipend. However, the research council website states that the quoted 142xx per year is a minimum. I wonder what that means, and under which circumstances it could be higher in the first place. Considering I'd be replacing a postdoc, there's money to be saved anyway.

Hey Yirara, Would love to hear the outcome, as I haven't heard of it being done before either.