The Music department has an international reputation for our research. We were awarded the first ever Regius Professorship in Music – the first awarded in the humanities for over a hundred years. Professor Julian Johnson is the inaugural, and current, holder of that title.
We have an excellent record of PhD completion and a thriving postgraduate community. We have around 65 PhD students researching topics across the full range of Musicological and Ethnomusicological Studies and Compositional Practice.
Royal Holloway has excellent research facilities, including electronic resources and the largest library in the University of London. The Music department also has state-of-the-art electronic studios.
There are many opportunities for research students to work together at Royal Holloway. Doctoral students in Music participate in and lead a variety of research seminars, including the Visiting Researcher Seminar, Postgraduate Days during the year when all postgraduate students come together to present their work, and other specialist reading groups. There are many other seminar and reading groups across the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences that are available to postgraduate research students.
We will encourage and support you if you wish to present your work at conferences, or even organise your own conference: each student has an annual research allowance, and is alerted to funds available elsewhere.
Students are supervised in the department for the degrees of MPhil and PhD, awarded by the University of London. We will consider applications to undertake the faculty MA by Research (assessed entirely on the research dissertation: max. 40,000 words), though our lively taught Master’s degree remains the methodological preparation for future research that we recommend.
To determine if your topic can be supported, see our research pages and staff profiles for a summary of the research interests of all members of the department.
It is possible to study either full- or part-time. If you wish to find out about the feasibility of your research or creative project, an informal enquiry can be made to Professor Julian Johnson: Julian.Johnson@rhul.ac.uk
Further information about our Music PhD course can be found by clicking here, or following the link below.
