I am sorry to hear about this, it is awful! I have a friend going through the same and the the way they are talking about the future of your work in front of you, must be gut-wrenching.

Have you told them you want to continue the work? Some supervisors can assume that you will leave at the end of a PhD unless you clearly tell them. You could still ask for a post-doc position or help to find funding for a post-doc. Or you could apply for a post-doc at another university doing the same work. Them not offering you a position immediately isn't the end of the road.

Though, moving on is a part of life. Leaving this project after 3 years of hard work, must be difficult but you will be moving on to better things. A PhD is really a glorified apprenticeship that proves to the world that you cane be an independent researcher, the project is a method to prove it. The fact you managed to get it to a point were it can be handed off as a stand-alone project is impressive. Well done! See it as an achievement not a sub.

PS; if they still want an RA, the supervisors want someone who will do menial work without any expectations of authorship. Which is not a job you want anyway.

My honest opinion is that everyone should have their own system that works best for them.

I am a hoarder that downloads every paper I read and use Mendely to search them if necessary (it can search through the text of the papers for you). If the paper is really good, I write a short summary of my thoughts/opinions of it in a word document (it is currently 78 pages) and give it keywords, so I can cross-reference. For books, I scan them then write a summary about the work and put it in the word file. I know my system will drive others nuts, but it works for me.

if you take a lot of notes from physical books, scanning them and using pdf-text software might be useful.

I am agreeing with pm133. If you can find literature on your exact topic, it isn't novel. So be creative and think about what is linked to your research. I see too many times people, getting stuck because they can't see literature telling them exactly what they want.

I think you could get some mileage out of technological change and how that affects marketing. When movies were invented new celebrities were born, who were massive influencers, as brands paid to have there stuff in films. It was the same with, glossy magazines, TV, reality TV, early internet, each with their own celebrities that changed the way things were advertised. Social media is the new disruption technology and it might follow a similar path to the way brands market themselves to customers.

I still think it would be odd for your supervisor to give you a higher stipend/salary just because you have funding. You are PhD student not an employee.

If you are in a well funded lab, you might be able to get a post-doc with your current supervisor. Which would be a lot easier and should lead to faster results during the post-doc. Also if you do leave, you can always collaborate.

I agree with TreeOfLife. Talk with your supervisor about it.

I know people that come to uni once a week or once a month, just to visit their supervisor. As long as you get results no-one cares about were you work. Though if you want to have a job, there are usually limitations in the student contracts, which vary. But I would always recommend you to go into uni as much as possible because friends can help so much.

It is not the degree that counts, it is the skills. If you have a pass with relevant experience and maybe some references/publications everything will be fine. If you get a pass while sitting on your bum the entire time, it is not good.

You just need to figure out a way to sell yourself and not the grade.

Hi MyWorld,

Most universities have a set wage for wage for PhD students. The UK government also sets the PhD bursary for the country as a whole. I don't think it is common for PhD students to get raises unless other PhD students in your lab got a raise. It means that PhD students are equal and that supervisors don't give raises to their favourites.

At least you get conferences with everything paid for! Also, it is nice to be in a well-funded lab which can make research and publications easier. You also now have a chance of getting a funded post-doc and work with other good people. There are a lot of positives, even if you don't get a raise.

PS: I am from the UK

Universities in the UK get assessed/ranked by the government on the number of PhD completions and the completion rate. It is in their interest then to pass as many PhDs as possible to get more funding. Which is what I think is the underlying issue.

Another point is that academic freedom is on the wane. Undergraduate and masters courses are more and more, do as you are told and get a first/2:1, which isn't really good preparation for a PhD. As well as, funded PhDs usually having set topics/goals because that is how you get funding in the first place. So again, you can do as your supervisor says and you get a PhD. Academic rigor and curiosity is being driven out by "competitive market" funding models.

That is my opinion. The world changes and standards must change. PhDs are not were they once were because the government treats them as sources of cheap research not by the old academic standards.

What do you want to know?

While reading do you find yourself asking questions about the work? Just follow them up and see if you can answer them through literature. If you can't find an answer, try and solve it yourself. think what can you do to solve that question and can you do it? If necessary break it down into smaller question or if it is too small, ask what can it lead to.

It is not about just reading literature but reading it and going what else?

That makes a bit more sense.
Looking at the management of innovation with focus on manufacturing.
While trying to identify persistent innovators and how they meet goals (i know i have butchered that)
Want to investigate written records of 8-10 companies and make comparisons
That sounds very interesting though I have a few things

I did a placement year were I was on a project that was about 3-5 years old. It was the pet project of the MD and he wanted a very particular design to work but we kept hitting problems. We kept trying to modify the machine to make it work but it never did and I know that the project is still active 3 years later. It is conceptually flawed and competitors made a better design work. Yet the MD keeps "persevering" with this project and I bet they will never tell you anything about this project. However as a whole the company is quite innovative and if they gave you positive examples, it would look very successful. So what I am trying to say is that companies could hide failures, diluting there success culture. I don't know how you can account for this but could have a significant impact.

Also you might have trouble defining were one project ends and another begins. Again during the placement year there was a very large broad project that spawned many sub-projects. One of the sub-projects developed into an idea for a brand new processing plant that technically addressed the goals of that first project. However the new plant should be a separate project, as it is a 5 year+ project and would require substantial investment. This might be very common, where there are several interlinked projects that together may reach the goal but the individual project was a failure.

My honest opinion is that you will have trouble getting companies on board unless you make a very anonymous system. Or you look at IT sector were everything moves fast and the management would be more open to outsiders.

100% agree. I am in my second year and my supervisor is already discussing external examiners. She
is pushing hard to get a particular person (who she knows through association) that is known as a soft touch. He reportedly has been external examiner 3-4 times and always gives minor corrections - he also goes to the pub with you after the viva. I know that if I get him, my viva will be a joke but it still counts as a PhD.

There needs to be some sort of standard but assessing a thesis is so subjective I don't there ever will be.

Agree with kenziebob, no reason to feel ashamed. Most people take a break before a PhD and you are no exception.

This is quite an interesting topic.

What discipline is this from engineering, science or management? Because what do you define a process as? I see a process could include any methodology from how to optimally pack parcels to how to make plastic parts. Are you comparing like with like or allowing cross-field comparison. Because that could cause a massive impact on the results.

Also how do you control the goal setting process. For example a company could see a 10% improvement, get 15% in real life but there is actually 25% possible improvement. They look successful but they had minimal ambition that makes them look successful.

10 years is a very long time period. How many companies have someone working on the same project for that long? You may have better luck at looking companies with multiple department/branches looking at similar projects simultaneously.

Engineering student here.

Do they require different modules to get either an MSc or MA?
Have you looked at history PhD advertisements to see what they want?

Congratulations Dr Walker!

Also it sounds nice to hear that despite them disliking your results, your writing was more than enough to make up for it. A lovely reminder for people with awful experimental results that it is possible (even if yours were good).