Arts & Humanities MPhil/PhD

Entry requirements

Visit the RCA website for application dates, details and full entry requirements.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for eight consecutive years (2015-2022) in the QS World University Subject Rankings.

Research on the Arts and Humanities MPhil/PhD programme takes place within an environment that is ambitious to generate new methods and insights. We thrive on interaction across the broad areas of fine and applied arts and the humanities, through School-wide lectures, workshops and tutorials delivered by key contemporary artists, writers, curators and thinkers, many of whom form part of our permanent staff base. The broad base of expertise offered by the School means we can support research interests across a large range of disciplines; moving image and sound, painting, performance, photography, printmaking and sculpture as well as jewellery, metal, ceramics, glass, curating, critical and theoretical writing and design history. The School embraces its cross-disciplinary perspective and celebrates the deployment of diverse and original methods of research and production.

In addition to critical support from world-leading artists, academics, historians, theorists, curators and critics, the School’s MPhil/PhD community offers a rich and stimulating range of doctoral training, including the College-wide Research Methods Course (mandatory for all first-year research students), the School-based Research Groups (themed clusters that include seminars, workshops and crit sessions open to all Arts & Humanities research students) and opportunities for exhibiting and publishing research in student-led group exhibitions and symposia and in Prova (the School’sSoAH annual research journal). New student-led initiatives are encouraged and facilitated by the School. Public engagement is a vital part of our practice and we are keen to support interdisciplinary studies and dynamic and innovative projects that expand the potential for arts and humanities research both within the academic context and the wider cultural community.

The RCA also offers a Fine Arts and Humanities MRes, a one year, full-time taught degree that provides effective preparation for PhD study.

Department specialisms

Moving image and sound, painting, performance, photography, printmaking and sculpture as well as jewellery, metal, ceramics, glass, curating, critical and theoretical writing and design history.

Research Excellence Framework (REF) score

4*

Fees and funding