Secretly switching research topics and funding oddities
This might be field-specific, but nonetheless: in my field (cond-mat), it is very, VERY common that people (phd students and postdocs) officially employed withing certain funding schemes bound to specific projects spend most of their time working on other stuff. In the end, what counts is that your supervisor is happy with your performance and your results, and lack of progress on the &quot;funded&quot; research topic is going to be his problem, not yours. It is very unlikely to hear a supervisor complaining about their students not progressing well on one topic while doing really well on the other. Of course, a certain level of mutual trust between you and your supervisor is necessary, but that is good to have in any case.