practice based phd fine art uk

Slade School of Fine Art

• MPhil/PhD Fine Art

The Slade School of Fine Art is an art school with an international outlook, part of UCL, London's global university. The Slade offers a thought-provoking and creative environment in which to develop research and we welcome researchers from a wide range of backgrounds, here in the UK and internationally. We value the development of research through a wide range of artistic practice and champion its communication through inventive modes of exhibition, documentation and writing. We see the Slade as home to the ‘Artist’s PhD’. Our focus is on subject areas within Fine Art including Sculpture, Painting, Fine Art Media as well as on developments in Art and Technology. We also support and highly encourage interdisciplinary research between the Slade and disciplines offered across UCL.

Key information

• Full-time or Part-time
• Programme starts: September 2025
• Application deadline - 14 October 2024
• Application portal open - 2 September - 14 October 2024 
• APPLY NOW - for further information about filling in your application, see our Admissions page

AHRC-Open day split

The Slade is part of the AHRC funded London Arts and Humanities Partnership .

The LAHP annually awards up to 90 studentships for postgraduate research students studying arts and humanities disciplines at eight leading UK research organisations. Please check the  LAHP website for details of the award and to check eligibility.

Please read the information below in conjunction with the main UCL prospectus information: 

Slade Doctoral Research

Intrinsic to Slade doctoral research is a commitment to searching beyond established canons of knowledge-formation, to include voices and methods less recognised within traditional scholarship. Contemporary art-making is attuned to the possibilities this brings. As a practice-led discipline, art emphasises materiality alongside imaginative potential. It allows aural, visual, spatial, temporal and haptic modes of experience to carry and convey knowledge.

Slade doctoral researchers work in the studio, in archives, on site, and through community formations. They make films, writing, paintings, sound works, photography, sculptures, textiles, performance, installations, site-based and socially-engaged art. Our artist researchers are both situated and mobile, responding to and engaging with the complexities of the world around us, as well as imagining new and possible worlds.

In the pursuit of doctoral research at the Slade, the emphasis will always be on art. Across the possible pathways (see below), we will encourage and support the development of your research through a wide range of artistic practice, and we will champion its communication through inventive modes of exhibition, documentation and writing. We see the Slade as home to the ‘Artist’s PhD’.

The doctoral research community at the Slade is committed to anti-racism, which we understand as predicated on core values of equity, transparency, and reciprocity. Informed by this, the aim in all research exchanges is to create the conditions needed for everyone to respectfully speak their mind; to share work and ideas; to create and co-create meaning. We consider all voices and perspectives necessary for this act of making and continuously evolving a community of practice.

In the Slade, research is focused on subject areas within Fine Art including Sculpture, Painting and Fine Art Media as well as on developments in Art and Technology. We also support and highly encourage interdisciplinary research between the Slade and disciplines offered across UCL. We look for projects that address pressing questions and concerns for ‘now’, acknowledging that today, contemporary art and art research are situated in a period of radical transition. In a post-pandemic and ‘post-truth’ world, global shifts, both macro and micro, are resulting from conflict, migration, the climate emergency, calls for social justice, and technological developments. With its permeable disciplinary boundaries, capacity to readily register, adapt and respond to context, and ability to communicate through and across the sensorium, how can art and art research participate in the contextual thinking and making needed now for transformation and change? How can the radical potential of the artistic imagination usher in possible new futures?

Related to this, see: UCL Grand Challenges: Our themes

The aims of doctoral research at the Slade are to:

• advance the highest quality of artistic research that demonstrates ambition, breadth of vision and creativity;
• further such high-quality research through a wide range of artistic practice, and communicate this through inventive modes of exhibition, documentation and writing;
• make original contributions to knowledge through artistic practice, and further the understanding of artistic research itself;
• search beyond established canons of knowledge formation to champion and promote voices and methods less recognised within traditional scholarship;
• encourage a diversity of research outputs through, for example, exhibitions, performances, film and video, art-writing, print-making, new media, collaborations, publications, workshops, site-specific work, interventions;
• affirm the importance of Fine Art research while also exploring the possibilities of interdisciplinary research with other departments and faculties at UCL;
• engage with the radical and transformative potential of the imagination to effect change, working across disciplines, as needed, to do so;
• develop ways of making, thinking, doing and being that contribute to the research culture of the Slade, the UCL community, and wider fields of art and academia;
• encourage the sharing of research with national and international research institutions and wider publics.

Current research

Outlines of current and archived Slade MPhil and PhD research are in the MPhil/PhD pages of our Research section .

MPhil/PhD Slideshow

©the artist

Reece Straw

Shao-Jie Lin

Javier Artero

Credit: all the artists, contributors and Arts Cabinet

MPhil/PhD in Fine Art

Mphil/phd degree pathways.

The Slade offers the following three pathways for undertaking MPhil/PhD research:

• Practice-led Thesis: a thesis of art practice that makes an original contribution to knowledge accompanied by a written component of normally 15,000-30,000 words (with a maximum of 40,000) or 10,000-15,000 words (a maximum of 20,000) for the MPhil.
• Practice-related Thesis: a written thesis of 60,000-80,000 words with art practice that together make an original contribution to knowledge (or 35,000-45,000 words for the MPhil).
• Written Thesis: a written thesis of 80,000-100,000 words that makes an original contribution to knowledge (or 50,000-60,000 words for the MPhil).

Registration and Length of Study

The length of the PhD is normally 3 years full-time or 5 years part-time.

Researchers register initially for an MPhil and are required to upgrade to a PhD between 9 and 18 months (full-time) or between 15 and 30 months (part-time). You must be registered for a minimum period of 3 years (full-time) or five years (part-time) before you are eligible to apply for Completing Research Status (CRS). The CRS period is a further 1 year (full-time) or 2 years (part-time) registration without fees, during which time you must submit the thesis and hold the final viva examination.

What to expect

Supervision.

Doctoral research is independent and driven primarily through the work you do with your supervisors. Throughout the development of your project, you will meet regularly with your supervisors, either in group supervisions or with individual members of your supervisory team. You will be expected to complete and submit work ahead of time for consideration during each supervisory session, and to complete and submit a Supervision Report after each supervisory session. Progress throughout your research journey will be recorded on your UCL Research Log and discussed in yearly Annual Review Panels organised as part of the Slade Doctoral Programme.

Slade Doctoral Programme

As members of the Slade doctoral research community, you will participate in the Slade Doctoral Programme. This means attending and participating in the Slade Art Research Forums and, for those in Year 1 (FT) and Years 1-2 (PT), taking part in the Skills Workshops for Practice Research.

Term 1 4 x Art Research Forums (3 hours each) 2 x Skills Workshops for Practice Research (3 hours each)

Term 2 4 x Art Research Forums (3 hours each) 2 x Skills Workshops for Practice Research (3 hours each)

Term 3 2 x Art Research Forums (3 hours each) Annual Review Panels (1 hour each)

You will be expected to present and exhibit your research in the Slade Art Research Forum three times in total throughout your active registration as a doctoral researcher. This means you will present and exhibit your research 3 x times across three years for full-time and 3 x times across five years for part-time research. One of these presentations will be your formal Upgrade presentation and exhibition, which normally takes place in Year 2 (FT) or Year 3 (PT) of your research.

As well as the Art Research Forum, Skills Workshops for Practice Research (Year 1 FT; Years 1-2 PT) and the Annual Review Panels, you will be encouraged to attend and initiate research activities in the Slade; attend the weekly all-School Contemporary Art Lectures and Staff Talks, and to engage in Slade cross-School events; seek out research events across UCL and LAHP that are relevant to your specific research; be active participants in exhibitions, performances, events, conferences, and publishing both within and beyond UCL.

Skills Training

The Slade will offer some subject-specific training for practice research; however, the majority of your research training will come through UCL’s Doctoral School.

The UCL Doctoral School Skills Development Programme offers a range of courses that address the following: research skills and techniques, management of the student’s research, personal effectiveness, communication skills, networking and team working and career management. This is the first port of call for any training needs and all training needed to complete your MPhil/PhD research can be found in this suite of training courses: UCL Doctoral School Skills Development Programme .

Space and facilities

Slade art research centre.

There is dedicated space for doctoral researchers in the Slade Art Research Centre, which is in the Slade’s Woburn Square Studios – around a 7 minute walk from the main Slade building.

The Slade Art Research Centre space itself is currently divided into:

• Exhibition Space
• Discussion Space / Hot Desk Area
• Meeting Room / Communal Space
• Art Research Studio

This is an open-plan, shared space for making, exhibiting, and discussing art research. The Exhibition Space is used for the Art Research Forums where everyone is expected to exhibit their art as research/research as art. The Discussion Space can be used for the Art Research Forums or for any research-related discussions and activities. When not in use as a Discussion Space, this space functions as a Hot Desk Area. The Meeting Room can be booked out for supervisions or for meetings with colleagues and peers. When not used for this purpose, this room functions as a Communal Space. All the furniture can be moved and stored so that the entire space can be transformed into a public space for hosting symposia, conferences, workshops, etc.

All Slade doctoral researchers can make use of the spaces in the Slade Art Research Centre; however, only those enrolled full-time on the practice-led pathway have allocated space within the shared Art Research Studio. As this is not individualised studio space, the size of this allocated space is variable each year depending on how many people are enrolled as full-time, practice-led researchers and actively using the space.

Postgraduate Research Space in Slade Main Building

There is also dedicated office space for postgraduate researchers in the Slade Main Building that can be used by Slades’ Postgraduate Teaching Assistants as well as by researchers needing a quiet space to write or to have meetings with supervisors, colleagues and peers.

Slade Workshops and Facilities

As well as this the Slade Art Research Centre in Woburn Square Studios and the dedicated research space in the Slade Main Building, all Slade researchers (full-time and part-time; on any pathway) can access any of the Slade’s workshops and facilities in the Slade Main Building and book out equipment for research purposes.

Research environment

Slade research environment.

The Slade School of Fine Art’s practice-led research culture facilitates an ongoing commitment to individual excellence in art research while also supporting research with other artists, curators and researchers, which increasingly addresses pressing societal and cultural challenges.

• Our research aligns to five main areas of expertise:   Materials and Materiality comprises research into materials, in particular pigments and paints supported by the Materials Research Network.
• Histories and Cultures draws together researchers exploring the impact of historical perspectives on contemporary art practice and research.
• Media and Performance research explores analogue and digital Fine Art Media technologies, including moving image, sound, internet and installation researchers.
• Environments and Publics is concerned with research into place and publics, urbanism, sustainability, well-being and ‘the commons’.
• Dark Studies includes the Dark Universe Studies Centre (DUSC) where fugitive thinking and alternative forms of sociality draw on the black radical tradition and experimental practice. Research in this area evokes the dislocated subject of language and representation, channelled through performance, political writings, fictional provocations and processes of documentation.

See Research at Slade .

The Slade MPhil/PhD places great emphasis on interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary connections, and Slade researchers network regularly with doctoral researchers across UCL and the London Arts & Humanities Partnership (LAHP). You will also be encouraged to join research centres and networks relevant to your specific topic within and external to UCL, and to organise research events using funding through UCL Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) and the Global Challenge Scheme.

Wider Research Environment

Doctoral researchers benefit from the Slade's situatedness in UCL as well as its central London location and proximity to other external research institutions, galleries and museums. All Slade doctoral researchers are encouraged to attend research activities in the Slade, UCL and externally, including. Contemporary Art Lectures : Artists, art historians, critics, curators and writers visit the Slade to speak in the Contemporary Art Lectures, which are usually on a Wednesday evening. A comprehensive list of lectures available online can be found on the Contemporary Art Lectures page . 

Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) : The Institute of Advanced Studies (IAS) harnesses UCL’s extensive expertise across the humanities and social sciences to investigate received wisdom and to address the most urgent ethical and intellectual challenges of today. It is a research-based community, comprising colleagues and doctoral students from across UCL, as well as visiting fellows and research collaborators from the UK and around the world. Based in the Wilkins Building, the IAS runs a vast and varied range of conferences, talks and seminars throughout the year. Visit the Institute’s website to discover more about upcoming events.

UCL Art History Lectures : The Art History Department scheduled events across the academic year. See: UCL Art History Lectures - Full Programme of Events .

Sarah Parker Remond Centre : For the study of racism and racialisation organises a regular PhD reading group .

Other UCL Faculties : You can find additional details about events going on across the faculties of Arts and Humanities and Social and Historical Sciences by referring to the events feed on each of the faculties’ websites:

Faculty of Arts and Humanities Faculty of Social and Historical Sciences

London Arts and Humanities Partnership (LAHP) : LAHP was created in 2014 as an Arts & Humanities Research Council-funded Doctoral Training Partnership between King’s College London, School of Advanced Study (University of London), and University College London. Queen Mary University of London and the London School of Economics & Political Science joined the partnership as associate members in 2015 and 2016 respectively. LAHP runs a number of training events and research events that are both student-led and staff led. Please see details on the LAHP website under 'Training and Cohort Development'.

Teaching opportunities

The Slade offers doctoral researchers the opportunity to work as postgraduate teaching assistants (PGTA) on the BA Fine Art, BFA Fine Art and the interdisciplinary BASc programme in UCL Arts & Sciences. These Teaching Assistantships are supported by training and mentoring at the Slade and UCL Arena. They are available to apply to on a competitive basis.

Staff and supervisors

https://www.lahp.ac.uk/

Slade Professional Services Staff

Slade Teaching and Learning Office [email protected] Please write to this email address with any initial queries, including those relating to Admissions. If required, a member of the Slade Teaching and Learning Office will forward your email on to relevant parties.

Slade Doctoral Programme Staff

Head of the Slade Doctoral Programme / Departmental Graduate Tutor (Research):  Prof. Kristen Kreider .

Slade Research Tutor / Deputy Departmental Graduate Tutor (Research) / PGR Admissions Tutor:  Professor Dryden Goodwin .

Slade Supervisors

Primary supervisors are members of Slade staff, all of whom are practising artists or scholars in the history and theory of art, with national and international profiles.

Slade Staff Members

You are not expected to approach potential supervisors in advance of making the application to undertake research. However, Slade tutors’ profiles and research interests are listed on our  people pages .

It is strongly advised that applicants read our staff members’ profiles before your application is submitted. If there is a member of staff with whom you would particularly like to work, you may name them on the application form. Supervision by a specific tutor cannot be guaranteed at the application stage.

Secondary Supervisors across UCL

Secondary supervision is also available from renowned scholars and specialists across UCL and partner LAHP institutions.

UCL – Find an Expert

Previous, current and potential second supervisors across UCL include:

Dr Chiara Ambrosio (Philosophy of Science) Prof. Nishat Awan (UCL Urban Laboratory) Dr Rebecca Birch (Arts and Sciences) Prof. Daniel Brett (Engineering) Prof. Robyn Carston (Linguistics) Prof. Penelope Haralambidou (Bartlett) Prof. Rodney Harrison (Archaeology), Prof. Mark Midownik , (Institute of Making, Engineering) Dr James O’Leary (Bartlett School of Architecture) Prof. Sophie Page (History) Dr Aaron Parkhurst (Anthroplogy) Dr Jeff Scheible (Kings College London) Dr Marquard Smith (Institute of Education)

Applications

For further information on admissions and how to apply, see our MPhil/PhD Admissions page.

Fees and funding

For further information, see our fees and funding section for information about tuition fees, funding, scholarships and bursaries.

Visiting research student applications

You can apply to spend a period of 3 to 12 months at UCL undertaking research which is complementary to the Doctorate/PhD project at your home university.

Please see the  UCL Visiting Research Students page  for further details.

• Complete the form on the UCL Visiting Research Students page .
• After you have submitted the formal UCL application in Portico and a UCL Application Number had been generated, please complete and submit the  Visiting Research Student Supplementary Information Form  (Word doc) to [email protected] .

If you have any further questions, please contact  [email protected] .

Visiting Research Affiliates

We are able to host a small number of excellent visiting researchers, international scholars and artists whose research interests align closely with our research themes and priorities, as outlined the Research at the Slade webpage . Please see our Research Affiliates page for further information.

MPhil/PhD related

MPhil/PhD research

• Malgorzata Dawidek
• Katarzyna Depta-Garapich
• Egidija Čiricaitė
• Hermione Spriggs

MPhil/PhD Admissions

The Slade School of Fine Art has one application round per year for the MPhil/PhD.

MPhil/PhD FAQs

Find answers to frequently asked questions about our MPhil and PhD in Fine Art.

Find out about fees funding, scholarships, prizes and bursaries.

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Art and creative practices PhD

The University of Brighton is a creative and intellectually vibrant focus for a PhD in art and creative practices.

The School of Art and Media in Brighton has a long history of internationally-recognised work, has been a pioneer of practice-based and inter-disciplinary methods, and joins with other disciplinary areas to offer expert supervision.  

Past successes in PhD in Art and Creative Practices at the University of Brighton include PhDs in the areas of fine art, illustration, graphic design, visual communication, photography and film, digital and interactive arts, 3D design and craft, fashion and textiles, design and communication, drawing on the staff of different schools and sharing a creative vision and ethos that permeates the whole university.

Apply to 'Arts' on our PhD portal

Apply with us for funding through the AHRC Techne Doctoral Training Partnership

Key information

As an Art and Creative Practices PhD student, you will benefit from

• a supervisory team comprising 2-3 members of academic staff. Depending on your research specialism you may also have an additional external supervisor from another school, research institution, or industry
• access to and induction to research approaches from a variety of related fields, including social science, environmental science, media, design and the humanities
• access to a range of electronic resources via the university’s Online Library, as well as to the physical book and journal collections housed within the university libraries
• a range of colleagues using arts practices for research investigation, including a regular presentation day of research in these fields
• various spaces and facilities for exhibition and public engagement.

Academic environment

Our research and enterprise has, at its heart, an engagement with making and critical thinking that brings together creative inquiry, experimentation with material, process and technology with theory and critical writing. It provides new ways of understanding creative processes that offer insights into cultural and human emotion, thought and action.

Research activities within Art and Creative Practices include the production of innovative artefacts, both digital and physical, design, craft, inclusive practices, exhibitions, installation and performance, as well as creative writing, published texts, books and journal articles. Characterised by a blend of scholarship, knowledge exchange, traditional and cutting-edge practices, our research has been influential in collaborative developments with diverse communities and partners locally, nationally and internationally. It is our belief that knowledge generated through the development of creative and critical practice enhances and shapes every aspect of our contemporary culture and future lives.

We promote research excellence and support individual and collaborative research initiatives that through productive enterprise networks help to enhance society’s understanding of human culture and creativity. 

We welcome applications for PhD study in which practice plays a central role, as well as those applications that bring elements of practice into a more traditional thesis submission. As a research student, you will part of a community of learning with active participation in a range of intellectual and social events. All PhD students working on arts-based topics are integrated into the university’s wider research culture and we will provide you with opportunities to present ‘work in progress’ and network with other researchers.

Research themes in Art and Creative Practices

Researchers within the School of Art and Media are engaged in arts practice work across a wide range of disciplinary and interdisciplinary areas and, along with specialists in the history and theory of art, design, literature, creative writing and autoethnography from the School of Humanities and Social Science, and wider engagement with schools specialising across the sciences, we encourage interdisciplinary projects and cross-disciplinary engagements. Our particular areas of specialism currently include:

• artistic engagements with environment, memory, narrative,
• arts practices and science, health and wellbeing
• research into, through and with drawing
• inclusive arts practice and social contexts
• interactive digital arts and audience engagement
• networked media arts practices and interventions
• mediated performances, visions and the role of the body as site
• politics of representation, curatorship and exhibition making
• creative writing and autoethnography

Explore our Centres of Research and Enterprise Excellence:

• Centre for Arts and Wellbeing
• Centre for Design History

Some of our supervisory staff 

Gavin ambrose.

My supervisory interests lie in the development of new approaches to Graphic Design pedagogy. I have expertise in typography, printing, editorial design and graphic systems and conventions. I'm especially interested in the emergence of new approaches to the landscape of contemporary Graphic Design practice and how the role of the Graphic Design has shifted towards a bricoleur approach to contempory communication. Graphic Design is a pervasive subject that is integrated in our daily lives, but arguably the subject of little critical enquiry. An emerging research community and unified research clustering is beginning to address this shortfall, and Doctorate Level study will help to further this body of knowledge.

I am interested in supervising on enquries into:

• Graphic Design practice, both as an act of creation but also as a force for change;

• The changing topography of the Graphic Design landscape, and the changes to the 'role' of the graphic Designer as a contemporary communicator and creator;

• Shifts in typographic practice and relationships of Graphic Design to the broader influences of social and economic factors including globalisation and homogenisation;

• The role of communication as an emerging research practice;

• Self regulation and ‘rule’ or convention generation with in the industry;

• The role of ‘play’ and ‘failure’ in design Graphic Design practice, and in particular how these actions are navigated and understood by learners and educators;

• The emergence of alternative, less formal approaches to education and the role of the ‘Art School’ in this developing landscape.

Dr Martin Bouette

My work investigates the role of entrepreneurship in the development of creative careers as a business owner and researcher. This has included investigating the gap between education and employment for creative practitioners as well as exploring models of learning to support entrepreneurial development.

Current and recent PhD students:

Claire Dawson - An exploration for clothing reuse in the circular economy (2023 -  present)

Martin Irorere -  Sustainability in making material innovation in textiles, for the circular model in the fashion industry (2021 - 2023) 

Erika Wong – Art World Hegemony and Access: Competing Perspectives on the Value of The Creative Class (2016 – 2020) Brighton University

Veerapong Klangpremjit – Interactive Packaging Development (2014 – 2020) University for the Creative Arts

Akapan Thienthaworn – Design Management in UK and Thai SMEs (2011 – 2019) University for the Creative Arts (completed)

Amy Cunningham

My supervisory interests include fine art, video, multi-media installation, sound, voice, performance, site-specific art and cultural histories of technology.

Dr Jules Findley

Postgraduate supervision in Textiles, Fashion, Fashion Communication, Drawing, encompassing embodied materiality, my work in handmade paper and practice-based, installation art. More recently,  substantial research as co-investigator with an AHRC project in sustainabile materials in Fashion and Textiles. I am interested in waste in the Fashion, Textiles, Accessories and Leather industries, together with materials, circular economy, reuse and repurposing.  

Recent PhD supervision:

University of Brighton - Claire Dawson - Research Title: 'Clothing Reuse in the Circular Econonmy: An exploration of the challenges and opportuniteis for UK high street fashion brands' - [March 2023 - July 2029]

University of Brighton - Martin Irorere - Research Title: 'Closing the Fashion Sustainability Gap through textile Recycling: Evaluation of UK Gen-Z consumer attitudes, knowledge, and acceptance of textile recycling'. - [March 2021 - July 2026]

Anglia Ruskin University - Amanda Lavis - Research Title: 'Woven Language: A practice-based research investigation Exploring the Textile Praxis in Children's Book Illustration' [March 2021 - expected completion 2025]

External PhD Viva examination experience, University of Chester October 2020 - Georgina Spry -  'A New Felt Presence: Making and Learning as part of a Community of Women Feltmakers' 

Doctoral student supervision and examination

Meaningfully Engaged? Exploring the particpatory arts practices of adults with profound and multiplul learning disabilities (PMLD)  PhD Thesis by Melaneia Warwick completed in 2018

External examiner, Royal Holloway, Janyne Lloyd, PhD thesis title The Role of Reminiscence Arts in the Lives of Care Home Residents Living with Dementia 2016

Dr Charlotte Gould

My PhD supervisory interests are in Digital Media Arts and Visual Communication. My specific research interests cover interactive storytelling, augmented reality, digital and tangible media,  open interaction, play, participation, immersive environments, virtual reality and 360 video, audience agency and sustainability.

Dr Ole Hagen

In addition to fine art practice, I'm interested in consciousness studies, philosophy of mind, ontology and religious stuies such as Buddhist philosophy. My own PhD covered continental thought, such as phenomenology, poststructuralism, Derrida and Deleuze, but also philosophy of science.

Dr Asa Johannesson

I am interested in supervising PhD and MRes students in the following areas: feminist photographic practices and theories, queer methodologies, queer photographic practices and theories, queer activism and representation, new materialism, posthumanism, photography and ontology, non-dialectical contemporary philosophy, process-led photographic research. 

Dr Helen Johnson

Helen supervises PhD and MD students with an interest in arts-based interventions in healthcare, education and wellbeing, and/or the use of creative, arts-based research methods.  She is interested in talking to doctoral applicants who are interested in researching creativity and the arts, with foci including: art therapy; arts interventions for health and wellbeing, including invisible chronic and contested conditions; social prescribing; creativity and the lived experience of dementia; arts education; spoken word and poetry slam; art worlds/communities; arts inclusivity; everyday creativity; and the artistic process.   She is also interested in supervising students who wish to work with creative, arts-based and/or participatory methods, including: poetic inquiry; autoethnography; photo voice; photo elicitation; collaborative poetics; and participatory action research.  Helen currently supervises four doctoral candidates, who are researching: the lived experiences of women with borderline personality disorder (including creative coping strategies); neurologic music therapy with young people with juvenile dementia; black people's experiences of intimacy and psychosis; and decolonial praxis in museum learning.  She has previously supervised and examined work covering topics that include: perceptions of frailty in the undergraduate medical curriculum; the impact of austerity policies on homeless people; spoken word with young offenders in a Macedonian prison; the performance and perception of authenticity in contemporary UK spoken word poetry; and NHS staff experiences of work. 

Dr Uschi Klein

Dr Uschi Klein is interested in supervising PhDs in the broad areas of photographic histories and practices, visual and material culture, resistance politics, cultural memory and marginalised communities. She is especially but not exclusively interested in supervising research projects that focus on the lived experience of Eastern European totalitarian systems.

Dr Jayne Lloyd

Jayne is interested supervising practice-based PhD research into collaborative or participatory arts practices with marginalised groups, arts in health and social care settings, arts-research and arts practices located in both gallery and community settings.

Dr Philippa Lyon

My main supervisory interests are in the understanding and applications of drawing in clinical settings, the use of drawing as a tool of learning, approaches to arts/health research, the relationship between drawing and writing and creative/visual research methods.

I am currently supervising:

Vanessa Marr (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Jessica Moriarty;  

Caehryn Tinker (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Heidi von Kurthy and Kay Aranda;

James Murray (PhD, School of Art and Media) with Gavin Fry and Duncan Bullen;

Lindsay Sekulowicz (AHRC Collaborative Doctorate, School of Humanities and Social Science) with Claire Wintle at Brighton, William Milliken and Mark Nesbitt at Kew Gardens and Luciana Martins at Birkbeck;

Duncan Bullen (PhD by Publication).

I worked for a 3 year period as a learning mentor for a PhD student in the School of Art and Media. They completed successfully in February 2024.

I have supervised 5 PhD students to completion: Dr Muna Al-Jawad, Using Comics-Based Practitioner Research in the Healthcare Humanities, 2024;Dr Simon Bliss, Jewellery, Silver and the Applied and Decorative Arts in the Culture of Modernism, 2019; Dr Gavin Fry, Male textile artists in 1980s Britain: a practice based inquiry into their reasons for using this medium, 2018; Dr Curie Scott, Elucidating perceptions of ageing through participatory drawing: a phenomenographic approach, 2018; Dr Sarah Haybittle, Correspondence, trace and the landscape of narrative: a visual, verbal and literary dialectic, 2015.

I have been an independent chair for two PhD examinations (Andrew Cross and Ada Hao) and have examined eight PhDs: Joy Mower, Canterbury Christ Church University, 2024 (external); Mingyi Wang, University of Brighton, 2023 (internal examiner); Jane Shepard, University of Brighton, 2022 (internal examiner); Melissa Cheung, University of Sydney, Australia, 2019 (external examiner); Louisa Buck, University of Brighton, 2018 (internal examiner); Samantha Lynch, University of Brighton, 2018 (internal examiner); Mike Sadd, University of Brighton, August 2015 (internal examiner); Tanja Golja, University of Technology Sydney, Australia, January 2012 (external examiner).

I've acted as internal examiner for three MRes students: Claire Scanlon, 2019; Diana Brighouse, 2015; and Mark Lander, 2014.

I have also been an independent reader for MPhil/PhD transfers and Annual Progression Review reader for 5 students.

Dr Simon McEnnis

Dr McEnnis is interested in postgraduate supervision in journalism and media studies. He is particularly keen on projects that explore professional and citizen journalism, digital and social media practice, blogging and influencer culture, media analysis, sports journalism or sports media. 

Roderick Mills

My supervisory interests cover the emerging areas of Illustration as an expanded field of practice including GIFs, animation, and the burgeoning self-publishing scene, through to traditional forms of graphic storytelling. I am interested in enquiries into situated illustration, both in terms of site specific work and ethnographic approaches, to how illustrators can use technology to go beyond the printed page. The importance of drawing as means of enquiry is another interest alongside performative aspects of live transcriptions and the use of workshops to engage with communities.

Dr Jessica Moriarty

One of my key passions is working with PhD students on creative practice, autoethnography and creative writing pedagogy. I have supported doctoral students working on transdisciplinary projects and work that seeks to challenge conventional academic discourse. At the moment, I am honoured to be working with students who are looking at queering the colonial, creativity and Bronte, Santiago de Cuba as moving archive, diverse narratives from Brexit, feminist romance, autoethnographic arts-based work, stories from care, autoethno-drag, identity and hybridity in fiction, and queer bodies in performance.

Xavier Ribas

Xavier Ribas is interested in developing postgraduate research in the following areas: contested sites and histories, legacies of colonialism, border territories, geographies of extraction, environmentalism, climate justice, art and activism. 

Dr Naomi Salaman

Contemporary art 

Contemporary art and feminist perspectives

The history of vision

The Art School; art education; art theory.

Prof Paul Sermon

My research and supervisory interests cover Fine Art, Digital Media, Performance and Visual Communications related subjects. Since joining the University of Brighton in 2013 I have taken on six PhD students as their lead supervisor, with completions in May 2016, March 2018 and April 2019. These PhD students have been undertaking practice-based research in a range of specific areas such as digital storytelling, interactive media, virtual reality and networked performance art. In my role as a PhD supervisor and Postgraduate Research Coordinator in the School of Art I bring our PhD students together through collaborative workshops, symposia and exhibitions, such as the group PhD show ‘Digital Encounters’ for the British Science Festival, Brighton in September 2017. I have had six PhD completions as lead supervisor to date, as well as two external completions and I continue to gain PhD Viva experience, with over thirteen PhD external examiner appointments.

For further supervisory staff including cross-disciplinary options, please visit research staff on our research website.  

Making an application

You will apply to the University of Brighton through our online application portal. When you do, you will require a research proposal, references, a personal statement and a record of your education.

You will be asked whether you have discussed your research proposal and your suitability for doctoral study with a member of the University of Brighton staff. We recommend that all applications are made with the collaboration of at least one potential supervisor. Approaches to potential supervisors can be made directly through the details available online. If you are unsure, please do contact the Doctoral College for advice.

Please visit our How to apply for a PhD page for detailed information.

Sign in to our online application portal to begin.

Fees and funding

 Funding

Undertaking research study will require university fees as well as support for your research activities and plans for subsistence during full or part-time study.

Funding sources include self-funding, funding by an employer or industrial partners; there are competitive funding opportunities available in most disciplines through, for example, our own university studentships or national (UK) research councils. International students may have options from either their home-based research funding organisations or may be eligible for some UK funds.

Learn more about the funding opportunities available to you.

Tuition fees academic year 2024–25

Standard fees are listed below, but may vary depending on subject area. Some subject areas may charge bench fees/consumables; this will be decided as part of any offer made. Fees for UK and international/EU students on full-time and part-time courses are likely to incur a small inflation rise each year of a research programme.

Contact Brighton Doctoral College

To contact the Doctoral College at the University of Brighton we request an email in the first instance. Please visit our contact the Brighton Doctoral College page .

For supervisory contact, please see individual profile pages.