is this shady? ESRC funding, supervisor left, uni will not transfer full funding

Poll

should i stay or should i go?

Hi all,

I'm new to the student room and am looking for some advice.

So I started a 1+3 (Masters and Phd) ESRC funding project studentship and towards the end of the 1 my supervisor left to go to another university.

On his leaving there was no-one who researched in my area who would be a suitable replacement (I had already struggled to find a second supervisor there). After much thought I decided it would be best to transfer to another university with experts in my area - my project needed it. Both the original university and my supervisor understood and supported my decision, that is until the realised that they had messed up my funding.

Without myself, or my supervisor being aware (not on any documentation and no mention), they had 'topped up' my ESRC grant with their own funding (75/25). This meant that I could not transfer anywhere without having to find the extra 25% of funding they supplied myself, despite there being no suitable replacement.

I had found a replacement university by this point with two supervisors who would be great for the project. However, they were not able to 'top up' the studentship like the first university had.

Since then they have included details of the funding split for prospective postgrads (so they clearly accept they were in the wrong in some way), although now they expect me to either just go for someone else at the university, or leave my studentship.

If I went for the replacement supervisors they suggest then I would already know more than the replacement supervisors as I have been researching in the. area for a while. They have never done any research directly in my area and I'm not convinced what they could contribute. More than this though, the university have treated me pretty poorly throughout this and with little guidance about what to do. It's all just on me. My previous supervisor has/and will be supportive regardless, he offered for me to go with him but its on the other side of the country and I'd struggle to find a second supervisor there. He has to ask his university to 'top up' in this case too.

I'm at a loss what to do next - I applied to this studentship because it was fully funded, and couldn't possibly afford to find the money. I'm not even sure how legal this all is.

my options are
- starting an official complaint at the university (could take a long time and be messy, then I may be able to transfer and start afresh at the most appropriate uni for the project)
- staying at the original university despite all of this rubbish, and the problems with appropriate supervision
- following my original supervisor (who is lovely but still some problems with supervision, and also not really where I want to be)
- leaving the studentship and applying for a new one and putting this sorry mess behind me (I love my project so would be sad to leave it for good)

urrrrgghhhh

ANYONE has any suggestions - I'm all ears/eyes.

Thanks

Reply 1

nulli tertius

Original post by Moppers

ANYONE has any suggestions - I'm all ears/eyes.

There is no obvious solution. I would suggest a letter explaining all of the above to Jennifer Rubin and hope she takes pity on you and knocks heads together.

https://esrc.ukri.org/about-us/governance-and-structure/directors/jennifer-rubin/

Reply 2

threeportdrift

Careers Forum Helper

Original post by Moppers

...........

The usual solution here is to follow the original Supervisor, the theory being the Supervisor is what is important, not the location.

The alternative is to reconsider what you expect from a Supervisor. It's often not necessary that your Supervisor knows more about the subject than you, you are after all, supposed to be breaking new ground! Often the strongest Supervisors focus on the research skills and written work, they know how to structure such a large body of work and make a coherent argument, they can advise on editing, publication strategies, make introductions, get you to conferences, find funding etc, all without knowing your particular area better than you do. I certainly got through with a Supervisor that kept saying 'I don't understand Chapter 3' and in the end, he found someone from a completely different speciality to go through just that one chapter with me.