Hi Onyx - I know it's difficult as you haven't started your research yet, but I think that you need to ask yourself whether you want to be an EU lawyer.

Although your research topic is valid and will stay that way, you might find that in a couple of years, EU law will no longer a compulsory subject for the QLD. That may have a knock-on effect on whether you can get an academic job, or even a position in practice (eg Brexit is a real problem for the competition lawyers that I know...)

If I was in your position, I would go ahead with the PhD, but I would make sure that any teaching I did was non-EU related. That way you can move into another area if there are any problems. So, if you're looking at European commercial law, I would try to teach contract; if you're thinking about the Equality Act 2010, I would teach employment law....

Sorry not to be more positive, but you need to take a long-term view here, I think.

Thanks for your replies - really appreciate it!

Just so you know, it would be difficult for me to transfer to another university with one of my supervisors, but I'm not going to disclose the reasons why in a public forum in case that would out me!

I think that the concern is that all of my main supervisory team would be external - I expect that I would be allocated someone internally to check up on me, but there is noone else that is researching in my area, so it wouldn't be of much practical assistance. I'm worried that if there is a problem, there won't be anything much that the university can do....

Hello everyone - I was wondering whether anyone on this forum has any experience of being supervised by someone outside of their university? Did the arrangement work, or did your supervisor lose interest in your research?

Just to give you a little bit of background, I'm about 10 months into my PhD at the moment and it's looking like both of my supervisors are going to leave the university in the next couple of months or so. There isn't anyone else at the university who looks like they would be able to help, so I am facing the prospect of having two external supervisors. Personally, I just can't see this working. I'm in two minds as to whether I should keep going with my PhD, start on a new topic or transfer to somewhere else?

Any thoughts, ideas or experiences would be greatly appreciated!

PF