Hi,

So the title is pretty self explanatory I suppose - basically I am a year and a bit into my PhD and whilst my research is generally going quite well, I have begun to notice that my supervisor seems to be losing interest in the project. In particular he seems to be holding our meetings to shorter times, taking significantly longer to read through reports or results that I give him, often forgets points from our previous discussions and also seems to be less forthcoming with new ideas or thoughts.

Now, don't get me wrong; he's a busy man and as my research progresses it seems reasonable that I'd be expected to require less intensive supervision. However, I share my PhD office with other students from the research group, a couple of whom also have him as a supervisor or co-supervisor and are further on in their projects, and I've noticed he is much more enthusiastic about their work. As examples: I've sent work to him before others and he'll reply to them first, he'll sometimes come into the office ad-hoc and chat to them about an idea he's had (which hasn't happened with my work in a while) and generally he seems to be far more active in directing their research.

Is this normal? Given that my work is going fairly well for now is this something I should be worried about? I think the problem stems from the fact that my research has ended up going down a path he is less familiar with than the other projects... But I guess I would expect him to give my work the same attention...

My hunch is that this is something which is a lot more common than you think

Ever read Steven Covey's "Seven Habits of Highly Effective People"? There's a chapter where he suggests that whats fundamantally important is to identify what you have control over in this situation + start working out of this space. The more time you give to spending about thinking/worrying about what you have no control over (your supervisor) the less your influence over him will become. Conversely, the more time that you spend working on whatever it is that you have control over in this situation, then the more your influence will expand into the relationship that you're concerned about. At least that may be part of the issue anyway!

Hope it helps