Is it normal that a PhD supervisor requires a student to apply for a grant?

Question

I'm a 1st year computer science PhD student in Poland, who started about 6 months ago. I'm working on a nice project towards a publication. My supervisor recently made an ultimatum: either I will apply for a research grant or we stop working together. This came as a surprise and sadness to me, because in the beginning I had no idea that this would be a requirement.

I'm not keen on signing for a grant, because it's binding for a couple of years (if you abort a grant you need to give the money back), you need to have a plan, write reports, it's a lot of work to even write the proposal down (and it can also be not accepted) and the money to my pocket is almost nothing. Most of grant could be spent on computing resources and conferences. But I could pay for conferences even from my own pocket (I work part time to cover my costs). For computing, there are some resources our group has access to that would be sufficient for my research.

I was thinking for a couple of days about this situation. Is it normal that a supervisor would force me to apply for grants? Can he do that? Should I talk to somebody? I'm feeling down and lost. I'm close to giving up the whole PhD. I mean, I give my time for no money. I was hoping that at least I could get an access to the computing resources. He doesn't have time to meet in person, although I have ask several times before. We talk via email. Before PhD studies I moved to live closer to the university, to have more interactions, but that turned out to be futile.

Answer 1

So, first of all, in Europe the relation PhD sutudent–supervisor can be detached from the relation employee–employer.

While it is possible to obtain a PhD sitting on a different job all the time, I can only support the urge to move to a grant-funded position. You would have much more time for your research when compared to part-timing for money. I am speaking out of experience.

So, the first conclusion is: you probably need a grant.

Now, for application. Typical funding bodies I know, require the applicant to hold a PhD already. So, it's your supervisor, who needs to apply. Contrarily, a stipend can be granted for a student. I heavily suggest talking in person about this issue.

The second conclusion is: you need to clarify, what kind of funding it is and who would do most of the writing. Talk with your supervisor.

The general rule of thumb is: agree with your supervisor, as he/she has much more experience in the academic questions than you do. There are some common pitfalls and non-obvious issues. For example: where to publish, what kind of a position is better, etc.