Art (Research)

Postgraduate research in the School of Art, Edinburgh College of Art, is internationally renowned, interdisciplinary and publicly engaged. Our research creates, embodies and responds to new registers of contemporary art and culture, whilst rearticulating processes and practices associated with established artistic media.

We are an intellectually vibrant, ambitious and supportive community where research produced by staff and students – both individually and collectively – is disseminated nationally and internationally. Collaboration, experimentation and an outlook beyond the University are central to this. We aim for our research to constitute social and cultural impact within and beyond the University.

Both MPhil and PhD programmes in the School of Art allow for either a purely theoretical project or for a combined practice-and-theory approach to artistic research. The PhD by Practice programme is designed for applicants who have established a well-developed creative practice beyond their previous HE degrees that is strongly connected to their proposed research.

MPhil and PhD candidates are supported by individually tailored supervisory arrangements made within the School of Art and ECA, as well as across the University of Edinburgh as a whole. PGR students are further supported through a broad portfolio of training events run by the University’s Institute of Academic Development (IAD). Our membership of the Scottish Graduate School for Arts and Humanities (SGSAH) allows us to arrange cross-institutional supervision with our partners in the consortium, as appropriate for individual students’ project needs.