Hi All,

I spent two years in industry after finishing my masters and I would like to do a phd starting next year. I have identified several potential supervisors at different universities and research groups. I am going to meet one supervisor this week to discuss a possible research proposal.

The area and the universities are extremely competitive.

My question is: Can I contact multiple supervisors from different universities at the same time and discuss possible research topics with them? I feel very uncomfortable doing that so I have only contacted one supervisor so far and want to see how the meeting will go. But even if it goes well it wont guarantee getting accepted and funded.

Is it ok to have discussions with several supervisors at the same time? What is your opinion?

Thanks in advance for your help,

Peter

Yes, it is normal to seek out different programs and supervisors with the same proposal. I did it, and I know many in my cohort did as well. I definitely wouldn't place my bet on just one supervisor, as it is better to have to make the hard choice between 3 or 4 offers than just hoping on one.

Yes I don't see any problem with this either.
Applying for funding might need to be done throgh one of them though but I only applied to fully funded PhDs myself so I cant advise.

Great! Thank you all for your help! and what do you think about contacting supervisors within the same department but in different research groups? I noticed they are in very close contact with each other as they have joint publications in their history. Shall I tell one that I'm also in contact with another one? Would not it come across as mass-contacting?

Yes, you should disclose that you're in contact with another potential supervisor in that uni if the department is quite close. How about you bring up the idea to be supervised by both of them? You need two supervisors anyway, and if they are both interested in your research proposal and publish together they would make an excellent supervision team.

I wouldn't see it as mass-contacting, just shape it into your awareness of knowing how strong the faculty is and how well you'd fit into that environment if you had two people that you'd love to learn under.