Overview

The School of Design at the Royal College of Art is home to internationally significant research, much of which is practice-based. The teaching and research areas of the School – Design Products, Fashion, Global Innovation Design, Innovation Designing Engineering, Healthcare Design, Robotics, Service Design and Textiles – represent a wide range of approaches to design research.

Features

Research topics range from those which are strongly user-focused – such as designing new medical innovations or citizen science through to those which are more experimental – such as designing trust in AI systems or multi-species design.

We particularly encourage applications in our strategic design research plan areas including: The future of making; Manufacture and materials; Systems and design; Design for safety; Design for health; Intelligent machines; Data capture and creation; Design science and Design resilience.

Programme Structure

Curriculum:

A postgraduate research degree challenges you to complete a research project that pushes the boundaries of our understanding.

Unlike a taught degree, a research degree emphasises independence of learning and increased specialisation.

You will manage your own research project in order to investigate your topic in depth an to produce new ideas, arguments and solutions.

A research degree will give you the subject matter expertise and transferable skills necessary for a wide range of senior roles in research and academia, as well as in business, industry and the cultural and creative sectors.

A PhD is awarded to students who produce a substantial piece of original research that makes a contribution to research in the field.

Key information

Duration

Full-time
- 36 months
Part-time
- 72 months

Start dates & application deadlines

Starting 2027-01-05 00:00:00
- Apply before 2026-12-05 00:00:00
Starting 2027-09-07 00:00:00
- Apply before 2027-01-19 00:00:00

Language

English

Delivered

On Campus

Campus Location

London, United Kingdom

Disciplines

Design View 39 other PhDs in Design in United Kingdom

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Academic requirements

We are not aware of any specific GRE, GMAT or GPA grading score requirements for this programme.

English requirements

We are not aware of any English requirements for this programme.

Other requirements

General requirements

The programme welcomes applications from candidates from across the world and of all ages, including those with academic and professional backgrounds.

Applications are considered in terms of quality of proposal, quality of practice (where appropriate), readiness to undertake a research degree at this level and supervisory capacity.

Your portfolio is a showcase of your work as an artist or designer and can be made up of images, videos or writing examples. Your portfolio helps us to better understand your application and allows you to show evidence of your ability and motivation to undertake a given programme.

Please submit a portfolio with no more than 10 projects that illustrate your practices and capabilities supporting your research proposal (20MB PDF max).

You will need to provide your score from the International English Language Testing System (IELTS) examination

Tuition Fees

Tuition fees are shown in and the most likely applicable fee is shown based on your nationality.

International Applies to you

Applies to you

Non-residents

32600 GBP / year

≈ 32600 GBP / year
Domestic Applies to you

Applies to you

Citizens or residents

10450 GBP / year

≈ 10450 GBP / year

Living costs

London

United Kingdom

1137 - 2157 GBP / month

The living costs include the total expenses per month, covering accommodation, public transportation, utilities (electricity, internet), books and groceries.

Funding

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Scholarships Information

Below you will find PhD's scholarship opportunities for Design.

Available Scholarships

You are eligible to apply for these scholarships but a selection process will still be applied by the provider.

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