Hiya all,

I'd like to hear your opinion on the following.

I left university after my Masters due to financial difficulties and started an industry job, though a PhD was always my big target. It paid well, but I never got the experience/job I hoped to gain. I stumbled upon a yet unfilled PhD position which would be in exactly the right direction for me. I've just been laid off and I'll probably not find a new job within quite a while (guess that makes it clear which industry I'm in?). I still would love to spend 4 years on an extensive research project. Is it considered funny in the UK to do a PhD if your gained your degree 7 years ago?

Well.. and the big issue: it's a big project involving a massive amount of training (at least 10 weeks in the first year and more in the following), lab work at companies, fieldwork, conferences, and learning a lot of things I'd never dreamed doing. And it's NERC funded. Unfortunately I don't qualify for NERC funding. Are there other ways to fund a PhD that might be too busy to work for a living for EU citizens that have not lived in the UK for the last three years? Next to living of course I'd also need funds for traveling and lab work. I tried to forget about this project, but my thoughts keep on returning to it.

hi yirara
I am sorry to hear that you've been laid off work. Soon I might be the same as you, as my funding comes to a close. I know what it's like to be without a job etc. I have been there.

As for phd, if you don't qualify for that NERC funded project, please don't waste any time and energy thinking about it.

I have been in your shoes before, my God there are so many things I don't qualify for.

What I do or at least, keep telling myself to do, is to focus on what I qualify for.

There is no point looking at the same place where we can't get anywhere.

No harm dreaming, though. I dream a lot myself.

If your heart is set on doing a phd, keep looking for projects that will at least provide something for subsistence. Do not take on a phd if it requires you to pay for your own lab materials and traveling.

Search carefully, keep looking and choose carefully.
love satchi

Is there a reason why you want to do that in UK? I found it almost impossible to find projects that are accesible for EU citizens. If they write that it is accesible for EU citizens, then they actually mean if you lived in the UK for 3 years, which excludes 99% of the EU citizens ;)
Depending on what you have done in the company it might be really easy or really hard to get a PhD position but definitely not completely unusual. As a natural scientists it is easy to find a PhD position if you worked in Research and Development but rather hard if you did something non-related to your field and science in general (sales or consulting in case of chemists or biologists for instance). Then they might think that you are out of science for too long. That does not mean that it is impossible, but it would make it harder.

Thanks a lot guys,

yep, I'm a natural scientist with kind of a R&D background. I do have experience directly related to the PhD projects I'm looking at and those are an excellent extension to what I was doing. One btw, is in the UK, the other in France and both have very tight ties to 'my' industry. The one in the UK sounds more interesting. I don't need to do a PhD in the UK, however I'm in a slightly unfortunate situation at the moment: I'm laid off and on extended garden leave in a country where I won't be allowed to stay once my work permit gets cancelled in a few months. If I don't find work until then I could sit the current crisis out in my country of origin, though I won't be able to find any work there and will have to pay a fortune for health insurance. The UK would be the better place to move to as surprisingly even without work I could sit out the crisis for longer (I do have good savings!). Having looked at the numbers again, I think I could probably even fund a complete PhD myself with a weekend job next to it provided I can still make use of lab and computer facilities. If it's a good idea, and if such is allowed for a NERC-funded project is a different question. The prof at least sounded happy that someone is reacting to that PhD project at all :) The alternative might as well be to not work, or work in a similarly uninspiring job until 'the industry' is hiring again.

Do you get no funding at all or would you at least get the tuition fees paid by the NERC? If so, you could still ask the professor if there are other possibilities for additional funding. You could maybe write a proposal together to apply for scholarships. It depends a bit on the competition. If you are a good fit for the position and there are no other suitable candidates then it is an option. If there are many candidates nobody will go that extra mile, because others fit exactly the NERC criteria.
Nevertheless DON'T finance a PhD with your savings. You do important work and the university and professor benefit from that. There is no reason to work for free, no matter if you want to do a PhD or not. There are always better options.

Well, I read the following on the NERC website (copy/paste doesn't work from how this PDF is constructed)

http://www.nerc.ac.uk/funding/application/howtoapply/forms/dtg-faq-students/

Q: I am an EU student...
A: Cannot receive maintenance grant, but ... would be eligible for a fees-only award (fees and research training support costs [whatever that means]). After being in the UK for three years, you can convert to a full award during the period of the studentship.
[the last part is unclear. that would then be for the last year of the PhD or in retrospect?]

Anyway, I'm currently writing a research statement and contacting my old professors for references. Could easily provide professional references as well.

Hi yirara,

In response to your first question - I don't think it's viewed as at all odd for there to be a signifcant gap between your last tertiary qualification and a PhD. In fact, I think most supervisors and institutions positively welcome mature applicants. I started my PhD when I was 41 after 15 years in the IT industry, and no-one has ever batted an eyelid. My funding is through the Centre for Global Eco-innovation at Lancaster, which in effect is European money. You state that you are not eligible for NERC funding - why is that? Sure they don't have an upper age limit, in fact that would be illegal under age-discrimination.

Peter