Hi everyone,

I am happy to have recieved an unconditional offer for a PhD in Computer Science and Molecular biology. I had sought to pursue research in Alzheimers and computer aided drug design at St. Georges however my supervisor (who I had done my masters thesis with) had to semi retire and was unable to attain funding. My background is in software engineering and I hold an MPharm degree.

The PhD I have a formal offer for was advertised as competition funded. However, on recently ringing the department I was told I hadn't been awarded departmental funding as the competition was very high :-(

(would attach that Beatles song Help!!! here)

I have started writing to relevant research councils to try and arrange funding but I'm a bit lost as how to organise this before I am due to start this September.

I would be most grateful for any suggestions/ideas people may have.

Thanks in advance,
Jamie

I think both the relevant research councils (assuming MRC and EPSRC?) award funding for doctoral students directly to universities, who then decide who gets the money, so this may be what you've already been considered for. I think the quickest way of finding out what possibilities there are would be to ask the department, what other students have done in this situation. One thing that does occur to me is whether you might be able to get an industrial sponsor through a collaborative studentship for something like that. Sadly, getting a PhD place is a lot easier that getting funding. On another note, if the supervisor is semi-retired, is s/he necessarily going to be the best person to supervise you? I'm just thinking that someone winding down their research career may not be interested in publishing more articles etc with you.

A semi retired supervisor may retire in a few years' time.
My friend had similar experience; five years later, the new supervisor had a different perspective from the retired supervisor...

She rewrote her thesis to please the new supervisor.
However, the examiner preferred the perspective of retired supervisor...
So, she rewrote her thesis again.

Hi there, thanks for your responses, sorry for my slow reply, should have altered settings to email me when I received a reply - I assumed this would happen, perhaps my assumptions, expectations of late are getting me into trouble! The world is at times far from a civilised place!! :-/

@bewildered, thanks for advice regarding an industrial sponsor. I think I've nothing to loose by ringing the department to ask what other students have done in this situation as they may have useful advice. The research councils have been polite in replying but just say they don't handle requests directly and so I do assume as you say I was already considered for these when the panel sat to allocate funding! As for my semi-retired supervisor, that was for my first choice of PhD which was in Biomedical Sciences/Neuroscience. @MeaninginLife I had presented my work with him on cyclic neuroprotective ligands at the Royal Society of Chemistry early researchers peptide symposium and subsequently at St. Georges research day, we were keen to put out some papers on computer aided drug design, however my pharmacist registration that I am undertaking now has been a huge workload!! The current PhD which I have received a formal offer is in Computer Science/Molecular biology, particularly in respect to Nucleic acid sequencing and cloud computing at Royal Holloway.

@MeaninginLife, that's interesting information on your friends thesis, I have personally experienced a lack of consistency in the application of pharmacy regulation but that's another story for another time :-)

Thanks again guys, perhaps I should try finding an industrial sponsor it's just such short notice, perhaps I might have to defer the offer to allow more time to organise funding.