Congrats Dr AlexMad! Glad it all worked out in the end (maybe your internal came across this post :p). You can breathe a sigh of relief! All the best.

Thank you for your replies rewt & Nead. As you pointed out Nead, it does indeed seem to be a grey area of sorts as I've encountered a few examples of journal papers in my field that are almost identical in content to previously published conference papers, i.e., no additional results/analysis and just textual modifications. Hence my question above. My supervisor is convinced that the paper is good enough for a journal so I think I’m going to go ahead and submit it along with a link to the conference paper highlighting the differences and see what they come back with. If further analysis/results are required then I can always add them at the revisions stage. Cheers for your replies guys.

Thanks glimmerbat; this makes perfect sense. Precisely, I believe the paper would be more useful in a peer reviewed journal. I just haven’t submitted it to a journal thus far for the reasons mentioned above. I think I will submit it to a journal and see what amount of additional work, if any, is required. Cheers.

Glad to hear this. As rewt so eloquently put it, you broke the letter of the rules but not the spirit. You have a legitimate medical condition that necessitated you take a break from your studies; you didn’t invent that story and even obtained a doctors certificate as evidence to back that up. The only mistake you made was not follow the prescribed procedure for taking a leave of absence. There’s no need to apologise or feel stupid for any of that. Good luck with the rest of your studies!

Hello all,
I would be grateful for some advice on the following.
I published a conference paper during my PhD studies and now wish to submit a revised version of this paper to a journal, is this acceptable? Note that the revised version has an improved discussion of the results presented in the conference paper, but the remainder of the paper including the results/findings hasn’t changed. I’m aware of the fact that it isn’t possible to publish the identical paper in multiple journals as it is considered unethical, but does the same apply if you’ve improved the paper (albeit only slightly) and are going form a conference to a journal?

Are you being asked to terminate your studies because you took an unauthorised leave of absence due to your illness? You are in your second year so presumably still within your registration period which is typically 3-3.5 years here in the UK. If so, technically you still have 1-2 years before you need to submit your thesis, i.e., you haven’t failed to meet the thesis submission deadline. Can you please provide further clarification?

I was in a similar situation to you a few years ago where I was working in the automotive sector as a simulation engineer and wanted to undertake a PhD in Simulation & Modelling but couldn’t find a 100% funded one. What I did was identify an engineering problem of practical/real-world importance to the automotive company I was working for at the time to which I could apply novel computational solution techniques. I liaised with senior engineers within the company to translate this practical problem into a research question/proposal suitable for academic investigation. Together we designed this research proposal in such a way that the findings of the study would maximise insight gained into an important customer requirement for a vehicle that the company was developing at the time, while ensuring that the project itself was sufficiently novel and complex for a PhD degree. With this proposal in hand I approached the Mechanical Engineering Department at my University and proposed this as a PhD project. After a few discussions my company agreed to cover my annual tuition fees and the university agreed to cover my tax-free stipend. In this way I was able to undertake my PhD without worrying about incurring any debt as both my fees and living expenses would be covered. Note that the abovementioned Company/University discussions were had in such a way so as to emphasis to the respective parties the following benefits: through completion of my PhD studies (i) the university would build rapport/strengthen affiliation with a major automotive company (ii) the company would get one of their pressing engineering problems solved for less than half the budget they would otherwise have had to set aside to pay a full-time engineer. I would recommend you follow a similar strategy and see how you get on. Good luck.

manas - If I'm not mistaken you posted the exact same question under a different username (positivemindset) about three weeks ago in response to which many fellow posters, including myself, posted a reply. Please at least acknowledge those replies before re-posting the same question in the event you haven't obtained sufficient advice to your problem/situation.

A LOT of people do exactly the same thing and don't hand in their minor corrections? Really? What statistics are you basing that statement on? I was the president of my university’s Student’s Association in the academic year 2019-2020 and NEVER encountered this situation. Statistics at my institution that I have the privilege to share with you: Academic Year 2019-2020 - Total examined PhD theses (68) – Total Passed PhD theses (67) – Passed with Minor Corrections (52) – Passed with Major Corrections (12) – Revise & Re-Submit (3) – Lower Award (1) – Failed (0). Bottom line: 98.5% of PhD theses examined at my institution in the academic year 19’-20’ were successfully returned with the stipulated revisions meeting the examiners’ requirements. The remaining 1.5% constituted the sole thesis that failed to meet the requirements of the PhD degree in the first place (i.e., at the point of examination). In other words, in the academic year 19’-20’ there was not a single case where a student did all of the hard work of getting past the finishing post (doing the research, analysing the data, writing it up and defending the thesis) and then simply did not bother to submit his/her corrections. Bearing in mind these statistics DO NOT include those cases where a student has dropped-out (at some arbitrary point in time during their registration period) prior to submitting his/her PhD thesis for examination as we are only discussing cases where the thesis has been passed subject to minor/major corrections or where a revise and re-submit is necessary. The fact of the matter is, getting to the point of thesis submission/viva examination is oftentimes so demanding (in so many ways) that the overwhelming majority of candidates will put in the extra effort to get over the finishing line. They just want it to be over with. Also, I’m fully aware of the impact that a student dropping out (not submitting his/her thesis) has on the grants available to academics/departments but it’s nowhere near as severe as you make it out to be.

The original poster said they had personal circumstances that prevented them from submitting their corrections on time. Granted the work may no longer be novel (which is yet to be determined) but presumably this candidate invested 3/4 years of their life into this endeavour; surely the university can show some compassion and just award the degree given that the requirements (submission of corrections) have now been met? I mean, it’s not like the work wasn’t novel at the time of examination, it was otherwise he/she wouldn’t have passed with minor corrections. Is the university willing to fail this candidate outright and potentially bin 3/4 years of hard work because he/she didn’t meet a superficial deadline? That too on top of the personal difficulties this person may have been facing in the interim. I mean, when you really think about it, it just sounds ridiculous. We all know how demanding undertaking a PhD is, and how flawed the UK PhD system is, I’ve experienced many of it’s difficulties, as have many fellow posters on this forum. It would be refreshing to see institutions start employing some common sense and make the process a lot easier for candidates. I’m not saying to compromise on the quality of the actual research carried out, no, just get rid of some of these archaic, bureaucratic procedures that have plagued the system for many a decade.

Thank you. It was a long and arduous journey but thankfully its almost over! I now have to shift my focus towards job hunting while keeping an eye out for my viva arrangements which will happen slowly in the background.

Ah, the joys of acquiring supervisor feedback, I too encountered this difficulty at times. As you acknowledged, however, they (supervisor) often provide feedback in ways that we didn’t initially anticipate yet improves the overall flow of the content. If I recall correctly, your PhD is in Engineering right?

Thank you. It was a long and arduous journey but thankfully its almost over! I now have to shift my focus towards job hunting while keeping an eye out for my viva arrangements which will happen slowly in the background.


Ah, the joys of acquiring supervisor feedback, I too encountered this difficulty at times. As you acknowledged, however, they (supervisor) often provide feedback in ways that we didn’t initially anticipate yet improves the overall flow of the content. If I recall correctly, your PhD is in Engineering right?

@Polly33,

I too experienced a very difficult PhD journey that took its toll on relationships and my mental health so I understand how you're feeling right now. I'd reach out to your university counselling service if you haven’t already done so – I know it can be difficult at times to discuss these issues with friends/family. Your suicidal thoughts are quite worrying and you need to seek help as your mental health and well-being takes precedence over anything else right now. Please feel free to PM me if you like. Best of luck.

Your university will have literature on this in the form of a Student Handbook under the heading exceptional or extenuating circumstances. Usually you have to inform them at the time you are facing the personal difficulty as retrospective extensions/suspensions cannot be granted. So I’d imagine that’s going to be the major push-back from them. You’ll probably have to appeal to them in such a way that they overlook this aspect. Given that you actually submitted and had a successful viva after it, I’d like to think that they’d be decent about it and accept your corrections and award you the degree. Good luck.

Agreed. It's the only way for it to work effectively.

All good, recently submitted and awaiting examination. How are you getting on?