MPhil/PhD
Institute for Creative & Cultural Entrepreneurship

You'll research

Overview

You'll be supervised by a full-time member of staff, generally agreed during the preliminary discussions regarding your research with the ICCE Director. PhD theses are up to a maximum of 100,000 words.

You should aim to complete and submit your PhD thesis within the time-frame specified by Goldsmiths. This is normally three to four years for full-time students.

A thesis for the award of MPhil may be submitted after two years of full-time or three years of part-time study. Registration can be changed from full-time to part-time status, and vice-versa, with the agreement of your supervisor.

Research training programme

All students enrolled in the MPhil/PhD programme are initially required to attend a weekly seminar in research methodology conducted by the Goldsmiths Graduate School. These seminars are designed to bring together research students with diverse interests in a cooperative and stimulating environment.

Its objectives include training students for the Spring Review Week, written and oral presentations, preparation for upgrading procedures, and publication of articles.

Assessment

Examination is by thesis and a viva.

Research areas

We are particularly interested in hearing from people interested in carrying out research into:

• Cultural and creative entrepreneurship
• Creative industries
• Business models for the creative economy
• Social entrepreneurship
• Cultural tourism
• Culture and regeneration
• Cultural relations and diplomacy
• Audience development
• Cultural policy
• Consumer culture
• The body
• Visual culture
• Urban culture

Relevant ICCE staff and their research interests

• Professor Victoria Alexander
• Professor Mike Featherstone
• Dr Carla Figueira
• Dr Michael Hitchcock
• Dr Richard Hull
• Gerald Lidstone
• Siân Prime
• Dr Nicola Searle
• Dr Tomoko Tamari

Current PhD students

Current PhD studies being undertaken by research students in ICCE include:

• 21st-century competencies
• Leadership of arts and cultural organisations
• Personalisation of the arts offer
• Value and how to assess this in the creative industries
• Audience development
• The business of comedy
• Applied conceptual art
• Cultural diplomacy
• Urban mobility experience and transport
• Urban culture and the open city
• Food culture

Careers

Possible careers following your research degree include:

• Academia
• Research
• Practice-orientated work
• Development work
• Work in social innovation and social economy
• Work in the arts and cultural sector and cultural and creative industries
• Publishing

Find out more about the Goldsmiths Careers Service.

How to apply

You apply directly to Goldsmiths using our online application system.

If you would like to apply for an MPhil/PhD programme at ICCE, first you should have a look at our departmental web page and our staff profiles to make sure there is a good 'fit' between your suggested research questions and ICCE’s areas of interest. Moreover, it is essential that your proposal fits with staff expertise. This will ensure you a high-quality research experience.

Before submitting your application you'll need to have:

• Details of your education history, including the dates of all exams/assessments
• The email address of your referee who we can request a reference from, or alternatively an electronic copy of your academic reference
• Contact details of a second referee
• A personal statement – this can either be uploaded as a Word Document or PDF, or completed online
• Details of your research proposal (see below for guidance)
• If available, an electronic copy of your educational transcript (this is particularly important if you have studied outside of the UK, but isn’t mandatory)

You'll be able to save your progress at any point and return to your application by logging in using your username/email and password.

Before you start at Goldsmiths, the actual topic of your research has to be agreed with your proposed supervisor, who will be a member of staff active in your general field of research. The choice of topic may be influenced by the current research in the department or the requirements of an external funding body. 

If you wish to study on a part-time basis, you should also indicate how many hours a week you intend to devote to research, whether this will be at evenings or weekends, and for how many hours each day.

Your research proposal

Along with your application details, personal statement and academic reference, you should also upload a research proposal at the point of application.

This should be in the form of a clear, concise and coherent statement of the proposed area of research of at least five pages and no more than seven pages of A4. The research proposal should include:

1. A working title for your research project.
2. A clear statement about what you want to work on and why it is important, interesting, relevant and realistic. You should detail your main research objectives: these could be articulated as hypotheses, propositions, research questions, or problems to solve. What difference do you think your research will make? Is your research achievable in the time allocated? (for example, 3 years full‐time)
3. Some background knowledge and context of the area in which you wish to work, including key literature, key people, key research findings. Think about how your work links to the work of others in the same or related fields.
4. Some consideration of the methods/approach you might use. How will you conduct your research? Will you use existing theories, new methods/approaches or develop new methods/approaches?
5. Some indication of the strategy and timetable for your research project and any research challenges you may face. What would be the main stages of your project and what would you expect to do in each year of your PhD?
6. A short list of the key references that support your research proposal. References should be listed in an appropriate convention (eg Harvard). Such references should be used throughout your research proposal to demonstrate that you have read and understood the work of others. Other relevant material that you are aware of, but not actually used in writing your proposal, can also be added as a bibliography.

When to apply

We accept applications from October for students wanting to start the following September.

We encourage you to complete your application as early as possible, even if you haven't finished your current programme of study. It's very common to be offered a place conditional on you achieving a particular qualification.

If you're applying for external funding from one of the Research Councils, make sure you submit your application by the deadline they've specified.

Applicants will be interviewed, by telephone or Skype for those not based in the UK. If this is the case, we will contact you to arrange a suitable time for the interview.

Find out more about applying.

Contact us

If you would like to make an enquiry about MPhil/PhD study before submitting an application, please contact us. In order to allow us to respond to your message efficiently, you may want to include the following information:

• Introduce yourself: Who are you and what activities/organisations are you currently engaging with? What is your academic background? Have you received some research training in the past? What is your main discipline at the moment?
• Indicate your subject area(s) of interest: Describe which general subject area within ICCE you're interest in.
• Describe your research interests: Which research areas and questions are you interested in? Which theoretical and conceptual approaches seem relevant to you? What kind of data might you need for your project?