Hello, my name is Massimo, I am an Italian student and I am looking for a possible Phd in the UK for commencing in October 2015.
My field is second language acquisition (in some universities this belongs to the Social Sciences, in others it is part of the humanities). I need a fully funded research program, as I would have to leave my Job here in Rome to go to Britain.
Now, I have already found a professor at University of Essex who is quite happy with my project and has agreed to supervise me, but of course I cannot be sure if the project is going to be accepted when I apply formally to the university. Also, I cannot be sure about funding, which she said is very competitive.
So I am looking for other departments, I am wondering, how many did you apply to before obtaining a place? And how many should I contact? My field is very specific so experts are not so many (I'm looking only at cognitive theories in Second Language Theories). Should I contact also professors who have a more general interest in the field? Thank you for you help!

Max

Does anyone have any advice for Max87?

Hi Massimo!

Regarding your question about the number of departments, I hard to give an exact number. However, given that you are an EU student, it might be advisable to widen the net a bit, since there is not as much funding as for the UK students.
It is definitely worth contacting professors with a more general interest in the field, you might discover that they have already supervised similar theses or they might suggest other prospective supervisors within the department or colleagues from other universities. Also, note that perfect matches are relatively rare and that academic staff is very mobile, it is not uncommon for a supervisor to leave the institution and the student to be allocated another one.