Hi there,

I'd really appreciate your advice and views on funding. I have received an offer of a PhD place at a London uni, which I'm thrilled about but I've not been successful in being nominated for the ESRC quota or open awards. I'm still waiting to hear on the uni's studentship, but since that in all probability is unlikely given how competitive it is I'm wondering if anyone has ever deferred tothe next year, to have the chance of applying for funding all over again. I know that there is no straight 'deferral' but presuming I speak to my selected supervisors and am able to take up the place next year, has anybody ever done this and had much success with funding second time around? Or should I just go for a bank loan and be brave and begin this year? I'm so torn. On the one hand, the deferring option gives me more time to work and save money and reapply for funding, which if I was to get would be a lot less stressful than doing this through a loan, on the other I really want to start soon and not put this off and it feels like a gamble since I could again fail to attract funding and then have wasted a year not doing what I want to do! Any input at all on this dilemma would really help.

Many thanks all. I should just say fyi that I am British, and that I don't have the funds to support myself independently.

Y

Y - This depends a bit on you. Have you already got the research MA or would the first year be doing that? I'm not sure anyway you'll be able to get a bank loan for a PhD but you would probably get a career development loan for a research training MA and at least then you'd have a recognised qualification at the end of a year if a second funding bid was unsuccessful. I would definitely defer rather than starting a PhD proper though as I think you'd be disqualifying yourself from funding if you did start as there aren't any +2 awards.
ESRC funding is very hard to get though and I don't see it getting easier next year. Also what subject and how flexible are you regarding where you do the PhD? If it's something like Politics which is hideously over-subscribed then you really need to apply nationally wherever has a decent number of quota awards to have much of a chance (and in reality have both a 1st and / or a distinction at MA) - keeping with one university is very risky. If it's a less over-subscribed subject then it might be less so. Finally, it depends what you want to do with the PhD. Personally, I would not self-fund a social sciences PhD with the hope of an academic job in the future having seen what happened to a couple of my cohort who did. Why? The reality is a) very few jobs and thanks to the RAE funding settlement the future isn't looking bright and b) getting those jobs often requires hanging around for a year or two on poorly paid part-time teaching or research assistant jobs and being very flexible about location - if you have bank loans due for repayment then the financial realities are such that you have to get a proper job fast.

So in sum your advice is that I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't?! You wouldn't advise self funding this year but don't think funding opportunities will get easier next year...I'm aware of the extremely competitive nature of ESRC funding, as I am of the inevitability of competition for post-Doctoral posts too. I got a BA First followed by an MSc Distinction and have an extremely eager allocated supervisor for September, so this is a solid indicator of the competition levels. I will in all probability 'defer' to next year at the same university. The university is very well endowed with quotas and my topic is not generic but rather highly, some might say outrageously, specified and linked massively to the two professors at this uni who hold the worldwide court on this topic; sifting around unis based on their quota numbers wouldn't therefore be a relevant option for me. Really I'm interested in experiences from others who have had this difficult dilemma to deal with or are currently in the same boat.

I'm with you 'Bug - the OP reaction to Bewildered's accurate and realistic post was a bit OTT. Saying that, this happens every year at this time, lots of disappointed applicants and the posters on this forum get a bad case of Shoot-the-Messenger. mature.

I agree with Bewildered and think the reply was a bit off. OP - if your fabulous first and distinction didn't get you ESRC funding this year then it surely follows that it is unilkely to change next year unless something else changes radically - your project perhaps? I do know people who were in a similar position and they either didn't proceed further, self-funded, went part-time and worked (is that an option) or VERY rarely secured funding elsewhere but usually incomplete.

Is it out of the question to work and do the PhD part-time? I'm 1st reserve on the ESRC quota I applied for, and it's unlikely that anyone will drop out. I couldn't bear to wait another year and go through all this waiting again, so I'm going to carry on working and try to do the PhD as best I can. I know that combining PhD and work gets a bad press, but there must be hundreds of people doing it.

Thanks all for the support! I was rather taken aback by the response. I don't know really why I'm bothering but heh:

OP - assuming from the additional info you gave, you are trying to get a +3 award then I would suggest the following course of action:

Get some feedback from someone (probably the person in charge of PhD students in your department), who was on the committee that decided the quota and open places and who is NOT your proposed supervisor, on why you were unsuccessful. You need to know if the problem was you, your project (from what you say about it, it might be that they think it's too close to the supervisors' work and not original), or that your proposed supervisors are viewed poorly as a supervisory team for some reason. You need top ranking in all three areas so you need to know what the weakness is and whether the problem is fixable. You also need a clear answer to whether it is worth you trying again next year at all. Being offered a place in itself is nice, but doesn't mean that the dept. necessarily considers you a serious option for funding.

If you are told yes, you've got a good shot if you sort out a b and c, then the more sensible option is to either defer completely or start part-time as moussec suggests.

If they aren't encouraging then you need to revisit how much you want to do a PhD and why. Think seriously about who else could supervise it elsewhere if it's the project that drives you. If you intend to concentrate on the work of those two people, then possibly you might gain from having someone supervise it with a less personal stake in the outcome.

I really wouldn't take out a big bank loan (assuming anyway in the current climate, you can find any bank that will fund a year of a PhD on the gamble of subsequently getting funding) unless you / partner / parents have independent wealth such that it does not represent a personal risk.

Have a chat with the boss to be. Whatever you do, keep them informed; thay may even be able to be of assistance.