Hi,

I'm through a Doctoral Training Account scholarship from the EPSRC for my PhD. I have never signed a contract or anything, the only confirmation of the scholarship that i have is an email offering it to me and the fact that i've already had 3 payments...

This didn't concern me, but my mum mentioned it the other day and now i'm wondering if it's something i should have. Do PhD students have contracts?

I've spoken to some fellow students in my research group and none of them seem to have a contract, so i guess it's just not done around here. But now that i think abut it, given the amount of money involved, it seems quite strange!

If they don't like my work can they cancel my funding without warning?

I never had a physical contract, either from EPSRC who funded the full-time PhD I had to leave due to falling seriously ill, or with AHRC who funded the part-time PhD I completed.

You should have a set of guidelines though, outlining the obligations of each half. If you don't have these already check EPSRC's website where you should be able to download the requisite stuff.