Dr Jay Jericho, Tru, thanks for the replies, suggestions and support, it means a lot to me right now. In relation to other Supervisors, unfortunately my 1st, 2nd and 3rd Supervisors were all appointed by the PI, who has their full support. I've contacted an advisor in the Grad School asking for clarification on the University's policy in relation to Research PhD Projects, have an appointment this week, so hopefully will understand my position better after that. I have been careful to document everything, so have plenty of notes and emails as proof of what has been going on. I think the input of an unbiased, objective third party is probably essential to resolving the situation, but from what I have heard of academic practice, this will be difficult to achieve, and our working relationship may be so damaged that it will be difficult to proceed with the project. I have considered just accepting my situation and proceeding as instructed, but am worried that so much has been taken from my work that I will not have enough to defend my Doctoral Thesis.

I should also note that feedback on my progress and work to date has been excellent with a lot of interest from industry, and not so with the other student, so the reason for my test plan being transferred to their project may be to boost their profile on the team. Also, I have been advised by the Dean of Research at a recent progress review to take ownership of my work, but am struggling to do so with current restrictions on my autonomy.

Tudor Queen, Dunham, thank you both for your replies. Your suggestion that I request that my name be be included in any publication is very helpful and I will certainly do this. I'm still not sure I have clearly expressed the situation regarding the test issue though - essentially there are 2 materials which are the subject of 2 PhD Theses. I have devised a series of tests and a dissemination plan for my material over the past 2-3 months, which is central to developing and promoting my Thesis. My Supervisor has now taken this plan, prohibited me from carrying it out, and handed it over to the other student for thesting their material. I am therefore left back at square one regarding a plan to test my material and progress my Thesis, additionally all available project resources will have been expended on the other material and I am likely to have to fund my own testing myself - is this really acceptable on an academic research project?

Hi Treeoflife, thanks for taking the time to respond. It's good to have an objective external view, and I will definitely try talking to him from the perspective you have suggested. I do appreciate how lucky I am to have such clearly defined objectives and methodologies, but feel that I could be bringing a lot more to the project myself.
Rereading my own post, I should have qualified in relation to the tests, he is actually prohibiting me from proceeding with them and passed them on to one of his other PhD Students to do instead. This effectively means I have spent the last 3 - 4 weeks planning and documenting a methodology for the benefit of another student's PhD. I have no problem sharing resources and methodologies, and in their repeating these tests at a later stage, but believe that this current instruction is completely unreasonable. It appears to be a case of his favoring the other PhD research area more than mine, and is using my research, ideas and our shared resources to progress this research at the expense of my work.

Long time lurker, first time poster here. So, my situation is that I am a PhD student on a funded research project, and am not clear how much autonomy I actually have regarding the scope and methodology of my research. My thesis was prepared by my Supervisor as part of a larger research project, and he appears to think my role is one of a Research Assistant, often refers to me as an employee, prescribes exactly what I should be working on, what tests I should carry out, what conferences I should attend, papers I should write etc. By doing so I feel I am missing out on opportunities that have arisen along the way, as well as feeling more and more detached from my work. I am also expected to carry out unpaid project work which relates more to other student's PhD research and represent the team at project meetings. The situation has become increasingly tense, and a recent attempt by him to hand over a testing regime which I developed for my own thesis to one of his other PhD students has become extremely confrontational, with my challenging his right to do so. Just wondering how this compares to what other PhD Researchers on group projects have experienced, and if he does have the authority to act as he is?