HI, I am a newbie here but have been reading a lot of the post and have found them all extremely helpful and interesting. I did a BSc through the Open University when I was working full time in retail. I got to the point in my life when I realised that life was too short and I applied to do a masters at UClan in 2013. I absolutely loved it was great to meet real people and have interesting debates and the luxury of spending you days reading and designing. I graduated with a distinction in October and realised that I wanted to continue studying. I spoke to my tutor about PhD funding (I paid for the masters out of my savings so couldn’t afford to pay for the whole of my PhD). He said that he had a student who was sick and was going to leave the program but he had to get it in writing that she was leaving then I could have her funding. I meet up with my old tutor every few weeks and I have a proposal written and have started a website on my proposal topic. The proposal is practise based concerning the design of recycling containers influencing sustainable behaviours. My problems are can I create enough new knowledge without it just looking like a design project rather than PhD level and is my old tutor just going to fob me off for the next few months? I am not working at the moment b/c my tutor said that a PhD can start anytime and I would have to move to a different city to start it. Just find the situation a tad frustrating as I have spent 6 months on the proposal yet I don’t feel any further forward to getting a PhD place. Thank you for reading my ramblings.

Does anyone have any experience of doing a practical PhD?

I don't know of anyone on here with this sort of PhD, but there might be.

I think you can do it as a design project, where the thing you design is your result, and then you would just write up the chapters with intros, methods and discussion like any other PhD.

Thank you for your reply and help TreeofLife. Its much appreciated.