Hello everyone,

I am at the end of my first year, but I have been having issues with my supervisory team for the duration. I have both a supervisor and a co-supervisor, and the project is in collaboration with 2 very different institutes (and my supervisors' respective fields are miles apart). As a result, they both have incredibly different opinions on the how I should approach the project...so I often feel very torn. Most of my meetings involve myself mediating these two guys, and trying to get a word in edgeways...

I have been told that I need to be firm about what I want to do since it is my project...but because it's collaborative, I feel under more pressure to please everybody, without a great deal of success!

Has anyone been in a similar situation and/or have any advice on how to tackle this?

Thanks,

JD

That's not a great position to be in, nor is it conducive to good research. I wrote about this problem a few months ago. This is an extract from the article: " Is it a clash of personality or academic disagreements which are causing friction? If they just don't like each other, leave them to it and don't take sides. Meet with them separately and discuss things by e-mails where they are both copied in. However, if they disagree on the research, perhaps because they are from two different disciplines, then listen carefully to what each has to say but don't feel you have to go with both their ideas. In some cases, a comparative approach to the research can be interesting but make your own mind. It is YOUR PhD after all!"
I hope this is helpful. Full article available at:

Thank you, that's very useful. It's mainly disagreements on how to approach the project, but I think there is an underlying current of clashing personalities! It's frustrating, because even though it's my project, I still look to both of them for a bit of guidance, and it seems that we spend most of our time disagreeing instead of helping me progress!