#7 Does anyone ever fail a PhD?

Author

Iain Jackson
May 06, 2025

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Failing a PhD?

Many PhD students give up part way through the PhD programme. It can be for any number of reasons, but tends to be due to one of the following:

  1. Finance. Funding the fees and living costs becomes impossible, especially for self-funded students.

  2. Work:PhD balance. Many students attempt to work part-time (and even full time) whilst working on the PhD. This is incredibly difficult and some students call time after attempting this.

  3. Supervisor problems: Sadly some students have a major fallout with their supervisor and decide to quit.

This newsletter is, however, not about this kind of ‘fail’ (after all none of these reasons are failures)…..

Many people are shocked when they hear that a PhD fails at the final exam - some even doubt it ever happens. Sadly, it does.

Failing the PhD at the Viva stage

Last week, I failed a PhD at the viva stage. I was one of the examiners and together with the other examiner, we decided after much deliberation and debate that the thesis was not at the required standard. The student was not given the opportunity to make corrections, nor submit the thesis for the lower award of MPhil, or MPhil with viva etc.

Obviously, I’m not going to go into details or comment on the specific case - I’m deeply concerned about this, and fully aware how devastating this is for the student. It’s horrible, and without hyperbole, is life changing for the student. The impact in terms of future jobs, debt, and feelings of shame and so on, are very much on my mind. Needless to say it wasn’t a decision that was made lightly.

Why did it fail?

-Not because of the viva performance. Although the student did struggle to properly answer our questions, further validating our decision.

It failed certain ‘tests’:

-It didn’t contribute to the body of knowledge

-It wasn’t going to be publishable.

-It did not have a satisfactory method and this impacted upon the quality of the data, subsequent interpretation and discussion.

In short, it was incomplete. The student was forced to submit because they had reached the time limit imposed by the university rules.

Where does the fault lie?

Blame isn’t really helpful, but it it’s important to understand that this was not a single or simple problem. It was an ongoing project that took place over an extended period.

In my opinion the blame sits with 3 groups:

-Supervision team: the original supervisor left, and the student was then supervised by a new team, who in fairness did their best to make up for the earlier supervision failings. The original supervisor is, in my opinion, the main cause for concern and they failed to equip and direct the student.

-Student: The student must have read other work, looked at other PhD dissertations and been aware of their own shortcomings. They also knew the submission date was looming. I have a lot of sympathy for the student, but a PhD must also be an exercise in self directed learning.

-Faculty and governance systems and processes. How did the student pass the annual reviews? Were concerns ignored, or is there a failing in the review process here? If a student is not making sufficient progress there needs to be a system that identifies this before the viva stage.

Academic Standards

I’m gutted for the student. Annoyed with the supervisors and faculty systems. I’m pleased that we have high standards and despite suggestions of falling standards and grade inflation we were able to resist the temptation to simply ‘let it go’. PhDs must retain their value. We owe it to those students who work so hard, conduct excellent research, and advance our disciplines.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this topic.

Until next time.

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