PhD while working full time?

Hi gents, I need some good advice. I am considering doing a 6 year part time PhD at the Open university while working, do you guys think this would work? Here is some background:

I work in Product Management for a fairly large (not quite FTSE 100) engineering company here in the UK. I am very interested in doing a doctorate for both personal and professional reasons. I am currently on course to finish my MSc part time at the Open University so I am familiar with studying part time (although at an easier level).

I know a similar question has been posed here but the circumstances were slightly different: http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=18247117&page=3

I originally looked into doing the EngD and while there are people doing the qualification at my company, they came on specifically to do that job and are mainly stipended by the EPSRC, so I think it is a harder sell to convince them to create a new programme paying contribution fees of £24,000 (£6,000x4yrs), Uni fees of £16,000 (depends if I can get funding) and pay my salary.

What I instead was thinking of doing was doing a 6 year (part time) PhD in Human Machine Interaction at the Open Uni; looking to improve the HM interaction in industry and looking at the impact it has on inustry. The top-level thesis would be my own, but the research projects would be relevant to my company's business. I would hope to integrate this into my role by researching topics agreed by myself and the company and commercializing those that work in industry, and extending the products in my product line. I have discussed this with the uni and they believe if structured correctly it is achievable, I have also started talking to the company about doing it. The cost of the PhD is also reduced to £12,000 for the whole course (for either myself or company to pay).

What do you guys think? Is it feasible? Any advice you can give me? Things I haven't considered?

I would have two concerns.

1 - the material doesn't sound PhD worthy. This bit - "commercializing those that work in industry, and extending the products in my product line" doesn't sound at all like a PhD. EngD, quite possibly, but not PhD.

2 - "hope to integrate" needs more work. A part time PhD can be done, but it is hard being a slave to two masters and the risk of not completing it is much higher. Realistically, you need to make your PhD your role.

You might also have to look at IPR and embargoes. You say "the top-level thesis would be my own" but your employment contract probably says otherwise. It is an easy problem to solve if everyone wants to solve it.

A PhD is very hard work, but 6 years to do a UK PhD part time is feasible while working as long as you you have reasonable working hours (you aren't expected to do 60hrs every week) and your personal life is fairly open (not looking after a family). Just don't expect to have much life because you will be spending most evening and weekends working. A PHD is going to be around 40-50 hours a week, so doing it half time and you should be adding 20-25hours to your working week.

I would be concerned about your idea of contributing research to your employer for several reasons. Firstly, by default anything you research will be the property of the university unless you first seek prior agreements between the university and business. Even then it is unlikely the university will want to give you 100% of the rights, more likely they will demand something like 30% of all profits of anything derived form the research. Whatever the case may be it is paramount you have this in black and white signed by all parties and agreed with IP lawyers before you do any research.

Secondly, it is incredibly difficult to do a PhD thesis that has any immediate commercial relevance in computer science. In some engineering fields it is different because there is typically design of a new piece of hardware/machine/infrastructure but in computer science at the PhD level you are in very theoretical grounds. Your PhD will mostly likely be a lot of math with conceptual algorithms, or something quantitative with a statistical analysis of data derived from some simulation/model etc.

Your research is aimed at answering previously unanswered scientific questions, increasing the knowledge of mankind. You should also being tackling problems that will be publishable in scientific journals.

It is not impossible for doctoral research in CS to have commercial benefits short term, but don't expect that you can just research a problem the company experiences, find a solution and write it up. If the problem has no scientific interest you have no PhD.

Really, it is actually incredibly hard to find a suitable problem/question to base your PhD on in the first place. that was definitely one of the hardest parts of my PhD, writing my thesis, the defense, publication was all a breeze compared to researching, discovering and formulating my actual core scientific research. I was nearly failed because of it. My difficulty was that I was working in an EU funded project that had a specific goal to achieve a certain robotic behavior. Achieving that behavior didn't add anything to science at all, but took up most of my time and limited the scope of research that I could do.


If you feel motivated then I would go for the PhD but ignore doing anything related to the company unless some great scientific question suddenly arises from them, which is unlikely. You will likely have an easier and more enjoyable time being free to choose a research area in collaboration with your supervisors without any additional constraints or legal issues.

And really, the value of a PhD to industry has absolutely nothing to do with what you researched, but how you researched, the methods and skills you leaned along the way, and the dedication that you put in. The research itself is almost always worthless commercially.
I have several friends with PhDs in CS that moved to industry and they were snapped up by big software firms. Their PhDs were very theoretical (one was a new optimal quantum computing algorithm, 1 was on some visibility algorithm in higher dimensional geometry and one was proof of a lower bound on the number DNA inversions).

Hi gents, thanks for your replies. I should clarify a few things.

I am aware that the part about commercialization of technology wouldn't be PhD worthy, but that part of it would help me sell it to the guys in the position to make the decision.

Subject wise, I should also clarify that rather than pure computer science I would be specialising in the Human Computer/Machine Interaction, so the PhD becomes much less abbout the technology but about how these technologies would contribute to the interaction between machines and humans in an industrial environment. This is something we have already started to think about. Sorry I will amend the OP

D.P. said:

A PhD is very hard work, but 6 years to do a UK PhD part time is feasible while working as long as you you have reasonable working hours (you aren't expected to do 60hrs every week) and your personal life is fairly open (not looking after a family). Just don't expect to have much life because you will be spending most evening and weekends working. A PHD is going to be around 40-50 hours a week, so doing it half time and you should be adding 20-25hours to your working week.

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Yeh my working hours are very reasonable so 20-25 hours to my working week would be quite feasible to add.

D.P. said:

And really, the value of a PhD to industry has absolutely nothing to do with what you researched, but how you researched, the methods and skills you leaned along the way, and the dedication that you put in. The research itself is almost always worthless commercially.
I have several friends with PhDs in CS that moved to industry and they were snapped up by big software firms. Their PhDs were very theoretical (one was a new optimal quantum computing algorithm, 1 was on some visibility algorithm in higher dimensional geometry and one was proof of a lower bound on the number DNA inversions).

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Ah this helps a lot, something to think about. As mentioned sorry for the confusion I would be looking more at the interaction between humans and computers/machines, so I suppose the PhD will incorporate elements of humanities rather than deep CS studies. My interest is less about algorithms or discovering new CS technologies, but more about how new technologies can be exploited in industry to find new ways of human computer interaction, how this makes an impact in industry etc

grumpysculler said:

I would have two concerns.

1 - the material doesn't sound PhD worthy. This bit - "commercializing those that work in industry, and extending the products in my product line" doesn't sound at all like a PhD. EngD, quite possibly, but not PhD.

2 - "hope to integrate" needs more work. A part time PhD can be done, but it is hard being a slave to two masters and the risk of not completing it is much higher. Realistically, you need to make your PhD your role.

You might also have to look at IPR and embargoes. You say "the top-level thesis would be my own" but your employment contract probably says otherwise. It is an easy problem to solve if everyone wants to solve it.

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Yeh this is something me and my work supervisor have discussed. I have 18 months before I would even start so I'm sure this can be sorted. I understand what you are saying though.

If you add anything related to humanities then it gets even more theoretical!

By the sounds of it your employer is only willing for you to do a PhD if it benefits them directly and can exploit you for cheap research. A very bad sign IMO, your employer should support you in doing a PhD because they would like you to have a PhD , not because they get any direct advantage from it. They should only get an indirect advnaatge through the skills you learn, not by manipulating your research direction.

With those warning signs if you want to do a PhD I would definitely do it in a field far removed from your employer and prevent your employer having any input at all into the research topics. It could all end very badly if your employer starts enforcing requests or controlling your research. Your PhD is your own and really only your supervisors and academic peers can provide input to help push you in a more interesting or successful direction. If your employer is not happy belong totally out of the loop then that really proves the point and should seal the separation. At which point I would either dorp the PhD or the job and concentrate full time on one or the other.

I would recommend that you fund it yourself. Otherwise you will be beholden to your employer almost all day, every day. Also, as D.P. has suggested, you are free to see where the research goes, rather than being driven by application level requirements.

D.P. said:

If you add anything related to humanities then it gets even more theoretical!

By the sounds of it your employer is only willing for you to do a PhD if it benefits them directly and can exploit you for cheap research. A very bad sign IMO, your employer should support you in doing a PhD because they would like you to have a PhD , not because they get any direct advantage from it. They should only get an indirect advnaatge through the skills you learn, not by manipulating your research direction.

With those warning signs if you want to do a PhD I would definitely do it in a field far removed from your employer and prevent your employer having any input at all into the research topics. It could all end very badly if your employer starts enforcing requests or controlling your research. Your PhD is your own and really only your supervisors and academic peers can provide input to help push you in a more interesting or successful direction. If your employer is not happy belong totally out of the loop then that really proves the point and should seal the separation. At which point I would either dorp the PhD or the job and concentrate full time on one or the other.

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Hmm interesting, I appreciate what you are saying but I don't really want to have to leave my job in order to pursue the PhD as I quite like my job.

Having heard what you are saying (I have but indulge me) how would I be able to align my role and PhD in a workable way. I have only spoken to my direct supervisor who is the person who has hinted that in order to sell it (to authorising it) I may need to show the benefit to the company.

Perhaps I am better off concentrating on the EngD route rather than the PhD

Tuppy_Glossop said:

I would recommend that you fund it yourself. Otherwise you will be beholden to your employer almost all day, every day. Also, as D.P. has suggested, you are free to see where the research goes, rather than being driven by application level requirements.

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Happy to fund myself tbh but I'm just trying to make it workable. So that I am able to handle the workload.

Jae-So said:

Hmm interesting, I appreciate what you are saying but I don't really want to have to leave my job in order to pursue the PhD as I quite like my job.

Having heard what you are saying (I have but indulge me) how would I be able to align my role and PhD in a workable way. I have only spoken to my direct supervisor who is the person who has hinted that in order to sell it (to authorising it) I may need to show the benefit to the company.

Perhaps I am better off concentrating on the EngD route rather than the PhD

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If I understand correctly your employer is already willing for you work part time. Therefore, what you do in your spare time is your responsibility, not your employers (as long as you are not working for a competitor). They should be even more pleased that you are spending your spare time doing a PhD.

They absolutely should not see your PhD as a way of conducting research that would have any commercial value to the company. That is a big NO NO. Your PhD must be absolutely independent of any commercial interest and should be research done for the sake of research and improving mankind's knowledge base.

What your employers gains on the face of it is nothing directly. They have to accept that they wont get a direct benefit, there will be no tangible commercial benefit they can report.

What they will benefit form is all the Skills, knowledge, methods and abilities you gain during the process. The skills of analytical and independent thinking and analyzing, advanced problem solving,understanding detailed and complex scientific, mathematical language and notions, the ability to comprehend complex systems, research, algorithms, math, engineering etc. The ability to write clear, concise, accurate and detailed technical material in a succinct and efficient manner. Being able to make presentations of technical material understandable to a wider audience (and presenting clearly in front of hundreds of people. The ability to work by yourself, set your own goal, motivate yourself, manage your own time and deadlines. Being able to defend your own work and ideas to the highest level of critique. Dedication and long term motivation to push through challenges. Ability to both give and receive strong feedback and critique. Networking and social interaction. Statistical analysis/programming/math/software skills.
And depending on your course, ability to teach other students at undergrad level, supervising student projects, dealing with the media, team work, etc.

That is what you get out of the PhD. Your research should be of value to the scientific community. It may have value to industry down the road, it may not, it shouldn't matter and shouldn't control your research direction..

Fair enough, I myself want to get some industry value from it so I guess I am better of doing the EngD or nothin

Jae-So said:

Fair enough, I myself want to get some industry value from it so I guess I am better of doing the EngD or nothin

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You will get loads of personal value out of a PhD, just it is unlikely you will get anything of commercial value.

You may find an EngD is more to your liking and is more applied and could be more directly of value to your employer but that doesn't make some of my warnings go away. The EngD shouldn't be used by your employer to get you to do research on the cheap, and you will need to prevent your employer controlling your research. It is possible that you will be caught between pleasing your employer and pleasing your supervisor. If you start ignoring your supervisor and do what you employer is interested in then you very well might fail. You will still need to get a legal clarification of IP ownership before commencing, especially when it comes to publishing (your employer might want your research patented, therefore you cant publish, therefore you fail).

If your employer has research for you to do then they should simply just pay you to do it at a proper salary. Done right you will be able to publish the material

A doctorate is never part time. I also recommend an EngD. You can do a doctorate in industry to at least PhD standard.

If you really want to do it, then do it full time, funding is usually available from somewhere if you're a bit more open minded about your research topic.

I'm in year 1 of a PhD at the OU and to be honest it looks like the part time people get the short straw for a lot of things, but maybe i'm getting a distorted view.

I have a friend who I consider to be one of the most single-minded people I know and he slogged away at his PhD for close to 2 years whilst holding down his full time job. In the end he had to let the PhD go; the workload was insane.

Having actually done a PhD and completed corrections whilst working full time, I wouldn't ever go into that kind of situation on a long-term basis.

As you're already an OU student could one of your tutors put you in touch with some people already studying PhD's? Are all OU PhD's research only or might there be some PhDs on some of your MSc modules too? (I know some UK universities have started doing 4 year full time PhDs with 1 year of taught courses initially)

Whilst some of the replies here are no doubt useful, talking to people doing a 6 year part-time PhD whilst juggling a job at the same time might well be more useful.

^ Indeed I am going to get in touch with one of the professors and ask a few questions. As well as getting in touch with a few EngD institutions to weigh and measure my options.

Thanks for the comments guys, it seem the general tone is not to try and do a PhD part time, but I'll see what the professor says

D.P. said:

I would be concerned about your idea of contributing research to your employer for several reasons. Firstly, by default anything you research will be the property of the university unless you first seek prior agreements between the university and business. Even then it is unlikely the university will want to give you 100% of the rights, more likely they will demand something like 30% of all profits of anything derived form the research. Whatever the case may be it is paramount you have this in black and white signed by all parties and agreed with IP lawyers before you do any research.

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The usual arrangement we use is that for EngD's the IP belongs to the company, while the academic partners get a non-exclusive licence to it. For CASE PhD's, the reverse is true.

But, this is all covered in an IP agreement that gets signed by all parties prior to starting the research.

Jae-So said:

I am aware that the part about commercialization of technology wouldn't be PhD worthy, but that part of it would help me sell it to the guys in the position to make the decision.

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But it can be EngD worthy - it is one of the big differences between EngD and PhD. Your initial post sounded to me like it was heading towards a portfolio thesis, which is also only really an option under EngD.

Beware of promising anything just to get people to agree. They might well hold you to it and if they hold the purse strings...

EngD is great. So good I got myself one

grumpysculler said:

The usual arrangement we use is that for EngD's the IP belongs to the company, while the academic partners get a non-exclusive licence to it. For CASE PhD's, the reverse is true.

But, this is all covered in an IP agreement that gets signed by all parties prior to starting the research.



But it can be EngD worthy - it is one of the big differences between EngD and PhD. Your initial post sounded to me like it was heading towards a portfolio thesis, which is also only really an option under EngD.

Beware of promising anything just to get people to agree. They might well hold you to it and if they hold the purse strings...

EngD is great. So good I got myself one

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Hmm you sound like you know quite a bit about this. I am struggling to find a doctoral centre that still has funding for the EngD. Would you be willing to chat via e-mail etc, please send me a trust message. It wouldn't let me send you one