I am a year into my PhD. My supervisor is great- I like him very much- but both he and I are starting to realise that, given the direction my work is going, we are perhaps not the best fit- my research is interdisciplinary and his expertise is in one narrow area of it.

I wondered whether anyone has ever switched both supervisor and institution part way through a PhD? How did it work?

Just to clarify- the reason I'm asking about changing institution, not just supervisor, is that I have identified someone whose work fits much more closely with mine and who I would love as a supervisor, but he is at another institution. Any advice v gratefully received!

I have no idea I'm afraid, but I would imagine it would depend on your funding and where it's coming from.

As a more helpful comment - I was appointed an external supervisor in addition to my internal supervisors for my PhD. The university insisted on it because we don't have a recognised social/qualitative research department here. Maybe this is an option you could explore particularly as you're working well with your main supervisor.

I do believe it is possible. On this topic, once I was told that the main issue is indeed to find the supervisor. Also, there are many cases in which students change university because their supervisor moves away. So it is possible, but as chantedsnicker says, it depends on where your funding comes from: if the funding is from your university, you can't bring the funding with you.