Taught course

Fine Arts and Humanities MRes

Institution
Royal College of Art · School of Arts and Humanities
Qualifications
MRes

Entry requirements

Candidates are selected entirely on merit and applications are welcomed from all over the world. The selection process considers and the capability to reflect, criticise and innovate as demonstrated in your research statement and portfolio. You should have a good first degree in a related subject. We welcome applications from students of all ages, and view both prior academic and professional experience as valuable.

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

Our Graduate Diploma Art & Design (pre-master's conversion) course can provide a route to progress to this programme.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for seven consecutive years (2015-2021) in the QS World University Subject Rankings. The MRes RCA Arts & Humanities Pathway introduces students to a range of advanced cross disciplinary and practice-based research methods, in order to equip them for their future professional and research careers. Students will develop creative and critically engaged individual research projects that emerge from a broad range of arts based practices and scholarship within contemporary fine art, curatorship, theoretical and historical studies. They are able to forge strong networks with a range of peers, artists and academics within the SoAH’s research community and across the College. Students are provided with a rich curriculum of models of practice within the fields of art and humanities.

The pathway fosters experimentation, building upon challenging, established research methods. We encourage individual and collective ways of working and students are urged to explore what the platforms and interfaces for their research might be, including how and when it becomes public, which may include a thesis, artworks, publication or project. Integral the the pathway is a group project, designed and delivered collaboratively by the cohort of School of Arts & Humanities MRes students.

The broad base of expertise offered by the SoAH means we can support research interests across moving image and sound, painting, performance, photography, printmaking and sculpture as well as jewellery and metal, ceramics and glass, curating, critical writing and design history. The School embraces this cross-disciplinary perspective and celebrates the deployment of diverse and original methods of research and production.

Research in the School is responsive to, and driven by, the concerns of its academics and students within this broad context and so our thinking is kept current. Our work is directly informed by our close relationship to contemporary practice and future-thinking in art and design. The School has an international network of partners, including artists, museums, galleries and archives and arts publishing and media organisations.

The MRes Arts & Humanities pathway will equip students to progress to doctoral research or to pursue careers in the arts, and the creative industries and the pathway emphasises professional skills alongside intellectual growth. The School's graduates have a strong track record in obtaining leadership roles in the arts and forging paths as leading practitioners within contemporary art practice.

We believe that research-informed approaches play an important role in new thinking in the arts, nationally and internationally, and the MRes pathway offers a training ground and networks to enhance developing careers.

The pathway offers:

  • Training and support for the development of a research career in academia and/or the professional sphere of arts and humanities.
  • A broad programme of interdisciplinary research methods training across art and design, at the interface of practice and research
  • Focus on the public value and contribution of research through understanding ‘impact’ agendas for arts and humanities research
  • A combination of time-tested and experimental research formats and approaches, including practice-led and practice-based research
  • Designed to nurture an individual research project (potentially leading to PhD or public project) and including an individual tutorial system
  • Includes collective and collaborative ways of working, leading to enhanced peer networking
  • Taught by Internationally-active, public-facing researchers
  • London research community, national and international partners including museums, arts organisations and academic subject specialist networks
Open Days
Join an RCA online or on-campus open day to find out more about this programme - RCA Open Days.

Fees and funding

Visit the RCA website to find out more about scholarships and funding opportunities.

Qualification, course duration and attendance options

  • MRes
    full time
    12 months
    • Campus-based learningis available for this qualification

Course contact details

Name
RCA Student Recruitment
Email
recruitment@rca.ac.uk