About 5 years ago, I did a Masters of Research (MRes) part of which was a supervised research project. Because of time constraints (Masters degrees are only one year in the UK) I was unable to gather enough data to generate any publishable material (though I did produce a thesis which I believe is in the university library probably gathering dust).
Fast forward to today, and after a lengthy break from academia I'm now doing a PhD at a completely different university at the other end of the country, but in the same field. I would like to (workload permitting) try and finish what I started and publish a paper from it using the expertise and equipment I have available. My concern is because this is a continuation of research started a long time ago at another university, whether this would present any issues or barriers to publication or even conducting the research itself.
Regarding my previous supervisor, I am intending to inform him of my intentions at least as a courtesy, and I honestly can't imagine he'd have any objection, but if he did, would I have trouble publishing any work from it? Would the university itself have any grievances? Some of the work he did on the project concerned a novel sensor design which was mostly unrelated to the main scope of the project, I will not be including this work in my publication, would this be a problem?
I'm also wondering how to credit him. Since I'll be writing a new paper from scratch, I'm not sure if I should include him as a co-author. I would at least like to include him in the acknowledgements if it's appropriate.
My current supervisor is happy for me to do this as a side project, so there are no issues there.
P.S. Before anyone asks, yes I have done due diligence and checked that my research is still novel (so I've not been "scooped" by someone else).