Asking about funding when you've already been told you'll be funded Disclaimer : Please consider I'm in Europe, and this is for European funding
I've been accepted to do my PhD. I've been told in writing something along the lines of &quot;You'll work for Prof. A doing project X for T years&quot;. My professor sent me his proposal and told me that even though it was done in 2016 he still has money for a PhD student.
However if I look for the project online, the funding agency stops giving funding on 2022.
So I'm worried about this divergent information (what my professor says vs what the funding agencies say) and I'm wondering whether I should ask my professor by email if he indeed has money for me to work on that project and also about how funding agencies really interpret their end date. I see this as possibly inappropriate because he already told me in writing that he can fund me for that project, and I don't want to sound like I'm questioning his word especially at this early stage.
How do funding agencies interpret their end dates? I mean, is a professor only meant to hire PhD's several years before the end date? This seems odd because one doesn't know exactly how long it'll take for a student to graduate.
It's common for funding to end during a prospective PhD student's expected stay, especially in places where a PhD takes 5 or more years. If grants are for about 3-5 years then this is almost a certainty. It's not unusual to get a student late in a funding cycle - maybe there wasn't an appropriate student for the role until now, maybe a prior candidate went someplace else or left early.
However, yes, it's a bit of a short window to have this funding already expiring within the next year. Sometimes there are other funding streams for a lab, sometimes there are possibilities for non-competitive extensions. You don't have enough information to know this is a problem.
All these uncertainties make it an uncomfortable but also necessary conversation to have. A PI should be comfortable talking about funding plans and contingencies and you should definitely ask about it. PhD programs should also have information about what they do when there are funding issues. For example, is there some department funding that can help cover a student if there is a gap?
Definitely ask your professor about funding. Avoid being accusatory and alleging any sort of misrepresentation, and just go in with questions you have: how long is funding actually secured for? What are the plans when it runs out? What happens if those plans fail?