The most fundamental aspect of your PhD journey is choosing the project and associated supervisor. You’ll be spending three to four years working on your own towards the goals set out in the project. So it goes without saying that you need to have an interest in the subject; ideally getting on well with your supervisor at the same time!
This can be a daunting prospect, here is my guide to help.
Choosing the right PhD project
The two main criteria for choosing a project are:
- Finding a topic interesting
- Project availability (including funding)
Project topics
Do you already have a clear idea for a PhD project? If not, which topic was it that drew you to the idea of starting a PhD?
If you’re stuck choosing between different topics, think about what will most compliment both your background and any long-term aspirations you may have. And if you’re still stuck, know that beyond a PhD researchers often do move to different areas.
The title of your proposed PhD does not necessarily lock you in to a certain path. It might be that you discover new passions during your PhD which take you to unexpected places: it’s a journey!
It’s not essential to know exactly what you’d like to research in your PhD, in fact it’s better to have some flexibility, but it’s useful to think about research areas so that you can search for relevant projects.
Searching for available projects
There are two approaches to find a project, depending on whether or not you have a clear idea of what you wish to research:
- If you’re not clear on a research topic: Go on a website such as findaphd.com, browse all of the projects that have funding and pinpoint ones that sound interesting.
- If you already have a good idea of what you’d like to research, and know of universities with a strong reputation in your field of interest visit their departmental websites. The website will of course list academics working in the field but will often also show available PhD projects across the whole department in one handy place: for example here is the Department of Materials list at Imperial College.
If you know the field but not which departments are good: start by running a web search and then a search in the academic literature. This will provide you with an insight into who is actively publishing work in the area.
I’d also suggest having a look at CDTs (Centres for Doctoral Training). There are loads of them around the UK and each focusses on a particular research area, usually with a wide scope to allow a large range of different PhD topics. For physical sciences and engineering, have a look here at the ones funded by the EPSRC.
An important consideration is to check the funding situation early on when searching for your PhD project. I have written a separate post about Funding a PhD in the UK. Beyond the stipend, it is worth finding out from potential supervisors how much funding there is in place for equipment & consumables: especially if these could be a large part of achieving the goals of the project.
Supervisor Considerations
At each university there are usually only a limited number of academics researching in a particular field, therefore you must jointly consider both the project and supervisor.
In an ideal scenario you will find a supervisor who can you build a good rapport with; someone supportive throughout difficulties and also who is concerned with your personal development. It might be a requirement for your application but if not I would definitely suggest meeting potential supervisors. Beyond the “soft” side of how well you may get on with each other, it’s important to consider some more quantitive concerns such as:
- Are they actively publishing many papers? If not, what are they focussing on?
- How big is the research group? Does the supervisor sit within a wider group of researchers?
- Will the project include other supervisors? If so, what involvement will you have with them?
- How active are other members of the group in publishing papers? If your potential supervisor manages 10 PhD & post-doc researchers and the group publishes only one paper a year, perhaps it won’t be the most fruitful publishing route during your PhD either. Yes, of course this very much depends on the research area.
- What is their success rate in students completing their PhD studies? This can be difficult to find out online and awkward to ask directly but worth knowing. I know of supervisors where they’ve had a series of students successively dropping out year after year for one particular PhD project, might be chance or might not be.
Most of these questions can be answered by looking up the researcher and their group online. If not they’re all sensible questions for a diligent student to ask and that the supervisor should be happy to answer.
Additionally, I’ve had my supervisors put potential PhD students in touch with me to find out how it is working in the research group so don’t be afraid to ask to speak to current students.
For more tips on choosing a PhD supervisor be sure to check out my additional guide – Signs of a Bad PhD Supervisor: 7 Red Flags to Watch Out For.
Looking for personalised help with your PhD application? I now offer a small number of one-to-one sessions for PhD coaching support. To book a session (or find out further details) please click here.
I hope this post has been useful! Feel free to get in touch with me if you have any questions you’d like to discuss. You can also subscribe for more content here:
