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Advice Forums > Forum: Business & Enterprise >

Can you fund a PhD with Entrepreneurship

Daniel Colegate Member since: April Apr, 2008 122 posts	Daniel Colegate wrote at 08:45 on 04 August 2010 According to this article on the Independent you can! http://www.independent.co.uk/student/postgraduate/postgraduate-study/how-postgraduates-are-turning-to-innovative-ventures-to-fund-their-degrees-2020840.html
Phillip Travis Member since: June Jun, 2009 28 posts	Phillip Travis wrote at 13:15 on 27 August 2010 I know people that have started businesses and they are very time consuming so I think the main problem is going to be finding the time to do so, alongside a full time PhD as well! Not impossible, but very difficult.
Samantha Leeson Member since: August Aug, 2010 15 posts	Samantha Leeson wrote at 09:27 on 20 September 2010 Hi Phillip, I found this blog post very interesting and related to the point you make: http://www.freshbusinessthinking.com/business_advice.php?AID=2481 As they say in their article "very successful people reveal that those people almost exhaustively attribute their successes to qualities such as passion, drive, luck, support of family etc", but not to having lots of money or time. I agree that the best time to start a business is when the idea is fresh and you have passion.
Phillip Travis Member since: June Jun, 2009 28 posts	Phillip Travis wrote at 06:42 on 21 September 2010 Thank you for the link. I guess it comes down to a choice at the end of the day of which avenue you are pursuing. I was only making the point that it would be difficult to do both a PhD and start a business whilst putting enough energy in to both activities to really achieve their potential. It would be similar to having a full-time job AND doing a full-time PhD - almost impossible to do well. But if you have an idea you believe in enough then of course you would pursue it while the iron was hot, so to speak.
Katie Collins Member since: August Aug, 2010 23 posts	Katie Collins wrote at 08:24 on 28 September 2010 It really depends on what day it is - some times I think that I could manage this and some times I don't, not that I have any clear ideas of my own. Isn't it possible to take a sabbatical for something like this?
Anonymous	Anonymous wrote at 08:26 on 28 September 2010 With universities increasingly supporting entrepreneurial activities in the form of business planning competition, Centre's for Entrepreneurial Learning, business modules in many courses etc. I think that there probably would be support for a postgraduate who wanted to take a sabbatical to pursue a business idea. This would be especially true if the idea was a spin-out from the university!!
Carrie Fraser Member since: November Nov, 2010 1 posts	Carrie Fraser wrote at 14:52 on 16 December 2010 Dartmouth College's Thayer School of Engineering has a unique Ph.D. Innovation program that allows PhD students to pursue their innovative research, and prepare for commercialization of their innovations by taking select engineering, business and entrepreneurship classes at Thayer School and the Tuck School of Business. Our size and culture makes it easy for innovation-minded engineers to pursue their research as well as pursue entrepreneurship. Research focus areas at Thayer are Energy, Medicine, and Complex Systems. For more information or to apply see http://engineering.dartmouth.edu/graduate/innovation/ or contact me directly.

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