PhD Funding for 4th Year [Lack of data during PhD]

M

Hi there,

I am on my 3rd year of my PhD and my funding is close to the end and I won't finish my PhD on time. I asked my supervisor to fund my forth year, but he said he won't, and I need to work hard or fund the PhD by myself.

Basically I had some really low quality data to work during my PhD (impossible to work with) and I was always complaining to my supervisor to invest buying a better equipment to collect better data. My supervisor was being unreasonable saying I already had good quality data and took 2 years and a half to convince him to buy the good equipment, after my papers were getting rejected because of the low quality of data. Now that I finally have the data that I want, my PhD is really close to the end. So I have 4 months to work with the good data and write the thesis!

Since my supervisor doesn't know much about the topic of my PhD, and totally unaware of state of the start, it was always really hard to convince him to buy the correct equipment.

How can I request extension of funding of my PhD, since the delay is totally fault of my supervisor? I don't want to be paying to do my PhD because my supervisor is a completely ignorant about my topic and his lack of support created this situation.

Thanks in advance!

Avatar for rewt

The university wants you to finish the PhD in the least amount of time possible. So I would focus on showing that you can finish (you have good data) and that you have a plan to finish by X date (people love gantt charts). If you show both of them you should get an extension.

Honestly I think it us unlikely you will get funding for a full year. As funding for a 4th year is just incredibly rare even under extreme circumstances. I don't know of anyone who has got full funding for a 4th year and some people have had worse conditions than you.

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