Fan Mo
Fernanda Bajanca
Quentin Loisel
The role of your supervisor
Dear all,
I have just started my Individual Fellowship in UK at the University of Wolverhampton. I would like to share some information and experiences about the role of your supervisor.
According to the grant agreement, do you know which is the role of the supervisor? I feel sometimes like a Phd student but I have a Research Fellow contract.
Who manages your funds? You or your supervisor? I mean...if you want to attend a Conference or if I want to buy a laptop, hasthe Marie Curie research fellow the freedom of these choices or everything is under the evaluation of the supervisor (as when you are phd student)?
Theoretically, when you are a Research Fellow you are like a Lecturer (with a "research focus") and you have a certain independency....Do I wrong?
Is there any EU documents that may help in clarify my position, roles, responsibilities and rights? I did not find this specific point in the agreement
Thanks a lot for any information/experiences about this point.
Silvia
7 Comments
It depends on how it is done within the organisation. Where I was and I am now, the Line manager (who is your scientist in charge) has to approve you purchases. I did not have any problems with that as my superviser was very reasonable and he did not monitor my spendings just approved without checking (or even gave me his passwords so I approve on his behalf), but I know cases where MC Fellows had problems with their supervisers trying to get access to money to uttend a conference. Re laptop, mind that if you buy one from MC money, it will technically belong to the University, i.e. when you finish you will either have tgo return it to the University or buy it off from the University.
It depends on how it is done within the organisation. Where I was and I am now, the Line manager (who is your scientist in charge) has to approve you purchases. I did not have any problems with that as my superviser was very reasonable and he did not monitor my spendings just approved without checking (or even gave me his passwords so I approve on his behalf), but I know cases where MC Fellows had problems with their supervisers trying to get access to money to attend a conference. Re laptop, mind that if you buy one from MC money, it will technically belong to the University, i.e. when you finish you will either have to return it to the University or buy it off from the University.
It depends on how it is done within the organisation. Where I was and I am now, the Line manager (who is your scientist in charge) has to approve you purchases. I did not have any problems with that as my superviser was very reasonable and he did not monitor my spendings just approved without checking (or even gave me his passwords so I approve on his behalf), but I know cases where MC Fellows had problems with their supervisers trying to get access to money to attend a conference. Re laptop, mind that if you buy one from MC money, it will technically belong to the University, i.e. when you finish you will either have to return it to the University or buy it off from the University.
Hi Silvia
The supervisor is the person who plays a line manager in the university helping you settle down. He/She is also your co-applicant I suppose when applying for the MSCA-IF. You can manage the funding by your own; meanwhile, a good relationship should also be maintained between you and your "supervisor" or partner. I started my MSCA-IF in Dec last year, and my practice is to orally remind my supervisor during weekly meeting, and contact the finance (we have a scecretary who handles this in the school) directly.
Regards,
Qi
Hi Silvia
The supervisor is the person who plays a line manager in the university helping you settle down. He/She is also your co-applicant I suppose when applying for the MSCA-IF. You can manage the funding by your own; meanwhile, a good relationship should also be maintained between you and your "supervisor" or partner. I started my MSCA-IF in Dec last year, and my practice is to orally remind my supervisor during weekly meeting, and contact the finance (we have a scecretary who handles this in the school) directly.
Regards,
Qi
Hi Silvia,
I can confirm what Qi and Olga have said, it works in the same way where I am (that is, the supervisor is my line manager and formally has to approve everything, although in practice I do it on my own), and I also think maintaining a good relationship with him/her is very important.
Regarding what the EU says, have a look at the Model Grant Agreement: http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/data/ref/h2020/grants_manual/amga/h2020-amga_en.pdf
Your rights and obligations are explained on pages 459-464, but it doesn't say much about the supervisor except that you should be supervised. If there is a serious conflict between you and your supervisor, you could request to go somewhere else (pages 468-470). However, I think this is only for really extreme circumstances, and probably quite complicated.
Best, Markus
Hi,
you can go to conferences, buy thimgs like laptop/books etc without the permission of your supervisor. You don't even need his/her signature for anything. This is how it is handeld here in Oxford, and I think it should be the same everywhere. In terms of grant money, you are reporting to the University, probably Finance team, and not to your supervisor.
Best,
Andreas