Dtjytyk

Late 50s is "frailing age"?

I don't see anybody "forcing" you to do anything. Prof M has given you some reasonable suggestions:

1. apply for funding


2. an offer to fund 50% of your expenses.

If the latter option doesn't work for you, you are left with either the first option: apply for funding, or other options such as A) Not going, or B) further explaining your financial situation in the hope that the professor might be able to offer more towards expenses. If you are hoping for (B) it would be best for you to at least first attempt to find other funding, as the professor suggested.

Your professor has made a generous offer if these were personal funds, I think. Your situation is difficult, I also think. It would be good if you could find a way to go, both for now and for your future prospects, both with the (prime age) professor and in meeting people.

So, the issue becomes funding. The first thing you might do is look for funding locally. It is entirely possible that your university has some funds that can be used to support students in such things. The place to start is with the department head, I would guess. See if there is some travel monies available as they certainly have for faculty. If not in the department, then possibly at a higher level in the university.

You may also belong to a professional organization as a student member. Many of these have travel grants available. You might look there.

Another possible option is funding from the conference itself. Some conferences have some funds for student attendees. In some cases the students serve as "volunteers" during the conference, running errands, but can also attend as usual. The conference web site may have something about this, and the organizers may be able to offer suggestions if contacted.

Going to a conference as a PhD student is like a business trip if you were a regular employee at a company. And those are of course entirely paid by your employer, and asking an employee to pay for a business trip out of their own pocket would be extremely unusual.

I'm not very familiar with fields where it's customary to publish on conferences instead of journals. But it seems to me that this is also similar to asking someone to pay any journal fees from personal funds, which again is extremely unusual and would typically be paid from research grants. Ensuring the logistics of publication, including how to pay for this is part of the job of a principal investigator, that should not fall on the students.

Your personal financial situation doesn't even matter, it is quite unreasonable to ask you to pay for essentially business expenses from your own personal money. So follow the advice of your professor about applying for money to fund your conference trip. But you can decline to fund it yourself without saying anything about your personal finances.

The professor is expecting you to make a serious good-faith effort to obtain funding. Based on your question, it sounds like you have not made any applications or enquiries about funding for conference attendance, but are assuming that there is no funding available (sadly, this is often true, but you are expected to try before giving up).

So, you should do a bit of research into where you might be able to get funding (as well as sources within your institution, you should check whether any learned societies or trusts have professional development funds for graduate students and/or for your area of research), and submit several applications to places where you may be eligible (in your application, indicate that you already have 50% funded -- this is generally considered a good thing by funders). By all means, ask your professor for pointers or leads as to where you might investigate.

Funding applications are a tedious and demoralising chore, but you need to get used to doing them. It is perfectly reasonable for your professor to expect you to make such applications. It is also perfectly reasonable for you to ask your professor to check your applications before you submit them (he/she may be able to offer valuable advice as to how to "sell" your funding application better).

If, after having made several funding applications, you still do not have enough funding to cover the cost, then your professor should be understanding, and should not expect you to pay for it out of your own pocket.

I am making my comment an answer.

I think you should suggest that Prof. M attends the conference and presents the paper* for a number of reasons:

1. Prof. M is the senior author in the work;


2. probably earns a lot more than you; and


3. will likely have access to extra grant funds to fund the trip.

You can phrase it along these lines:

Dear Prof. M,

Whilst I would welcome presenting the work at the conference, sadly my
financial doesn't allow to spend such an amount to travel. I sit
possible for you to attend the conference and present the work?

Adding to that, and because I have been in this situation, I don't it is reasonable to insist that a student attend conference out of his/her pocket. It can certainly be suggested but not insisted upon. The financial situation of most students is precarious at best, and in my experience there is very little benefit going to self-funded conferences during the first PhD year, in particular for a project that, as far as you are concerned is dead. The only person that can gain from obtaining feedback is your former supervisor.

*Unless this is one of rare instances that a conference requests the first author to present the work.

1. Is he your employer? Then he will pay the expenses for something which is mandatory for this employment.


2. Is he not your employer? Then he can't "force" you.

I don't see the problem.

At the European universities that I have worked, PhD students are seen as employees and thus receive a salary and their conference visits are paid for by the university. Often research projects have special budget for this. Master students with good and useful results will sometimes also be allowed to visit a conference at the expense of the department. Requiring you to (partially) pay to represent the university at a conference is cheapskating from your professor and degrading for you. Don't do it.