Hi there,

I am looking for some help regarding a question on PhD funding. I am in the following situation:
I was offered a PhD position (medical science) for entry October 2015, but failed to allocate any funding so far (scholarships, etc.). I am still looking for funding, but in the worst case I was thinking about starting the PhD with self-funding for the first months/year while applying for funding for the rest of the PhD duration as soon as possible. I know that I would have to pay tuition fees and my own maintenance costs (accomodation, food etc). But since this is a science PhD involving lots of lab work, I was wondering who has to pay for the laboratory consumables (chemicals, cell cultures, etc.)? Is that paid for by the university department (provided I pay my tuition fees) or would I have to cover that as well? That would be problematic, as I know how fast lab consumables costs can amount to seriously high values.

Could anybody enlighten me on this?
Thank you!

The best thing to do would be to check with the lab in question as they may have funds for this. However, I would anticipate that the cost burden would fall on you. Depending on the nature of the experimental work, it might be in the region of £1000 a month in reagents, equipment and other bench fees. Cell culture can be particularly costly in terms of reagents.

In the UK at least it's quite unusual for experimental science PhD students to self fund, for the above reason along with others. Personally I'd recommend holding off until you have a funding offer, with a different department/uni if need be. I'd also be a little skeptical of the motives of a lab group which was willing to take on students without funding.

I agree with HazyJane. If this is a UK sxience project, it seems very unusual for there to be no funding in place unless you have proposed the project yourself.

I know of one case where someone was offered a science PhD without funding in place at a top University. When they were offered a suitable project at another university with very good funding terms, the top University PhD place at that time was obviously left unfilled.

Costs if they'd taken this PhD? £9,000 a year for 3 years min, £1,000 min a month in lab consumables for 2 of those years min, making it £51,000 before living costs and accomodation were even accounted for. For a self-funded science PhD, that comes to £75,000 total minimum.

I'll add that once you start withoutout funding, I seem to get the impression rightly or wrongly that some organisations might be less inclined to offer funding, the thinking being you've the resources to continue and thus you're data will be available at the end (electronic repositories, access via the British Library) without them having to pay a penny. There is the counter-argument, however, that if you show interesting early results that this may encourage someone to step in with at least partial funding (the operative word being partial).

I would strongly advise you waited for funding to look for a project you're interested in with funding in place. You do not want to find yourself say almost a year in, the project going well and have to withdraw with nothing to show due to lack of resurces and significant debt.

Ian

Hi Vortex44,

I'm sorry that you're struggling with funding! It's a big decision to start a PhD without funding, so I completely understand your dilemma.

I just wanted to let you know that we have a PhD funding guide on our website here, which you might be helpful (it has links to research councils, charities etc. all of which might be able to provide you with some funding). There's even a section on 'PhD study without a scholarship' which might be worth a look at.

Also, FindAPhD have a £5,000 scholarship (and some runners-up prizes of £500) up for grabs, so you might want to enter into these too? Got to be in it to win it, as they say!
http://www.findaphd.com/funding/postgraduate-phd-scholarships/

Good luck with your search and I hope some of this has helped!

Nikki