Well I never was given any information to the contrary of the advert, until I was well into my PhD. When I accepted the studentship, I was doing so based on the studentship advert which I had applied for. You might be right that this has no legal standing, but I would be surprised, as common sense would dictate that it is not right to be able to change the agreement without consent from the student ... although I know law and common sense do not always go hand in hand ...

Thanks, that sounds really interesting. I felt that we must be covered by something. I will have a look around here and see if I can find out some more. If you do remember where you saw it, that would be great. Thanks

No I have no contract. But I am sure that there should be some sort of law to protect students? Maybe not, but it seems if there is no law, then people's stipends could be cut half way through their PhD?

I am in the UK too, seems like we have had similar problems. I have not signed a contract. The only thing I have is my job advert, and my supervisor told me verbally! Not much help :-( I can't believe that they can get away with this. Like you I feel awkward bringing it up, but it is such a large amount of money, I really feel that I shouldn't just forget about it. It is not my fault that this mistake was made, yet I am expected to be the one that pays for it!

I am in my second year of my PhD, and have been having stipend problems throughout the whole PhD.

The advert on the university website, to which I applied, stated my stipend amount, and that I would get £1000 annual increments. However, my supervisor now informs me that he 'made a mistake' and there will be no annual increments. In addition to this, my stipend is around £500 less per year than the amount advertised.

My supervisor tells me, that as I am a student, I have no legal rights with this, as it is not covered by employment law.

I cannot believe that this is true (well I am really hoping it isn't) as currently, I stand to get around £8,000 less over the course of my 4 year PhD, than I was led to believe when applying for, and accepting my PhD. This is a very significant amount of money to me and my family, and I feel like I am being taken for a bit of a fool, if they expect me to just write it off without trying harder to get at least some of it.

Does anyone have any ideas on what I can do?

Thanks in advance

Hello,

I have recently started a PhD and so far, I must say I am not really enjoying it.

To make matters worse I am having some problems with my funding.

When I applied for this PhD the 'job description' said I would be have a stipend of £16,500 per year with £1K increments per year. Having heard nothing to the contrary, I went ahead and signed a lease to live in a nice shared house, which I would be able to afford with this stipend. I also should say I left my well paid job, thinking this would be a good career move.

After a month at my PhD I was paid £1,100, not the £1,400 I had been expecting. I spoke to my supervisor, who informed me that I was being paid the standard £13,500 and the extra money was from my european sponsers and should arrive 'soon'. It turns out this money is in Euros and is €3000 (which, with the exchange rate, will mean that my stipend will be about £500 less than stated in the job description, annoying but not the end of the world). However I have still not had the money and have been given no idea when it should arrive. This means I am quite short on money at the moment.

My supervisor has also informed me that they made a 'mistake' when writing my job description, and I will not be getting the £1k increments per year.

So in total I will be getting around £8K less over the course of my PhD than was stated on the job description.

I feel very let down that no one bothered to tell me this before I started (there were 7 months in between me accepting the PhD and starting). This meant I budgeted for a higher stipend than I am recieving and will struggle a little financially.

I don't want to seem greedy/ungrateful as I know that many people get less money than I do and I am very lucky to have a funded PhD. I just feel that I have been misled and should get the money which I was told. As I said I've given up a well paid job to do this and moved house, so I was already going to be financially worse off, but now it is even worse.

This situation has really not helped me settle in and I am rather unsure as to whether I want to stay or not.

I would be really grateful if anyone has any advice for me. Has anyone been in a similar situation? Does anyone know if they are legally allowed to do this?

Thank you in advance