How to overcome feeling that published articles lack public interest? I am a MSc graduate student, still trying to get a PhD position, but with no success at all. During and after my graduation I struggle to publish some articles (right now I got 6, mostly published in IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus), but I do not feel happy at all.

The problem is that I see my publications as having a lack of public interest. I would like to publish more interesting, formal and mathematical stuff (I am in the field of Computer Science), but the problem that I have is that in my current place of work almost all my time is dedicated to lecturing. Also, and because I am working in a university of applied sciences; the research made here is highly applicable and less theoretical. All this things has put me in a state of deep depression.

What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? Should I seek for medical counselling?

Thanks
What should I do to start looking to my research and my made publications with a different attitude? 


I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that your problem isn't that you are working in applied sciences vs. theory. Further, I am not sure if your problems are of medical nature (but this can of course not be ruled out from what you wrote). Let me recap some things you wrote and provide some interpretation. I am not sure to what extend this will answer your question, but I hope my ramblings will provide input and perspective anyways. Maybe somebody else will provide a more direct answer to the question.

You are a master student who published 6 papers during his masters at a university of applied sciences. All of the papers have been in IEEE/Scopus venues. Yet you still can't get a PhD position.

First of, IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus isn't the quality label you maybe hope it is. There are terrible venues for which both of these things are true. The fact that you say you have very little time for research, and still wrote 6 of those things indicates that the quality of your papers may be not all that super. If this is the case, the problem that prevents your papers from having impact isn't that they are applied, it is that they may simply not be very good.

This may also be the issue with your PhD applications. For me, and many others, papers below a certain (subjective) quality standard count for next to nothing. Really bad papers may actively work against you. Again, "IEEE conferences or indexed in Scopus" does not rule out either of these cases, so try to evaluate your publications independently of these labels. For instance, pick a few PhD student papers from the group that you are applying to. Try to neutrally evaluate whether your papers play in the same league as those. If all papers of PhD students of the prof. or lab you are applying to are much better, and/or have appeared in much better venues than your papers, I am uncertain how much your publications will help your case.

You worry that your papers do not have a strong impact.

I think this point warrants some additional explanation. One of the sad realities of research is that most papers in all but the very top venues of your field (think ICSE or CHI for applied computer science) have very little to zero impact on the research community - and even the papers in the top venues often have close to zero impact on anybody outside your research community. Papers that really get the attention of your fellow researchers are few and far between. I have written papers that I personally consider good to great, which remain pretty much uncited (and, presumably, almost unread) to this day.

You want to progress as a researcher, but you work almost exclusively as a lecturer.

Try to see your situation as it is. Similarly to above, your problem isn't so much that you are working in a university of applied sciences - your problem is that your current position is incompatible with your career goals. You want to do research, but your job is teaching. Your situation would be none the better if you worked as a pure lecturer in a research institution (maybe this would in fact be even more frustrating for you). What you need to do is either (a) find a job or stipend that allows you to do what you want to do, or (b) accept that you are currently not on a research track.