Key information

Duration: 1 year full time or 2 years part time

Institution code: R72

Campus: Egham and Central London

UK fees*: £12,000

International/EU fees**: £27,000

The course

Public History (MA)

Royal Holloway’s MA in Public History was launched in 2009 and is the most well-established programme of its kind in the United Kingdom, attracting applicants from across the world. The Department of History, which forms part of Royal Holloway’s School of Humanities, is both a leading European centre for public history and one of the most innovative, diverse and widely recognised departments in the country. Members of faculty regularly appear on television, radio and in the popular print media and many of our staff are also engaged in community-based projects that make important contributions to policy development and national debates.

This MA offers a unique qualification for those who hope to forge a career in the public history sector, and to work at a heritage site, in a museum, or in film, television or print journalism. Through a variety of highly engaging modules, students are trained in the professional skills of historical interpretation and communication and provided with opportunities to meet leading practitioners in the field, including popular historians, museum curators, public archivists, publishers and TV and radio producers.

The programme thus provides a dynamic and challenging combination of practical and theoretical learning for historians who are keen to communicate with a wide public audience and offers students a unique gateway to the heritage sector and to the world of popular media. Many of our graduates have gone on to establish rewarding careers in the heritage and public history sectors, working for the National Archives, BBC, the Imperial War Museum, and a whole range of more local institutions.

We offer a wide range of postgraduate scholarships to help with funding your studies. We especially encourage eligible applicants to apply for the following:

Dinah and Jessica Nichols scholarship – Cash award of £6250 for Home/EU or international students with, or expected to achieve, a First Class degree or equivalent.

We sometimes make changes to our courses to improve your experience. If this happens, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Course structure

Core Modules

This module introduces students to ideas about, and approaches to, public history in Britain and the wider world, with the seminars providing a weekly forum for students to learn about and discuss the rich variety of ways in which historians engage public interest in the past. Students are encouraged to explore the history of public history and heritage and to understand that the representation of ‘the past’ has often been, and continues to be, contested and exploited for political, commercial and community ends.

Over the module of two terms, students acquire a repertoire of skills and approaches (combined with the development of advanced skills in the researching and writing of history) to enable them to act as effective and engaging public historians. These include knowledge about ethical and legal matters, strategic planning and development, as well as awareness of a range of issues that arise when working with local communities, conducting audience/visitor surveys and evaluations, exhibition planning and development, collection conservation, and education techniques for working in informal public spaces. The successful communication of ideas about the past, as well as what to avoid when communicating, are key, overarching themes of the module.
Radio broadcasting has a long and distinguished tradition of public history programming and innovation. This module seeks to equip students with a practical skillset and to offer you industry insights that will enable you to produce radio programmes that are informative and accurate, but also entertaining and engaging. Over the course of an intensively-taught series of seminars, you will learn how to devise, research, record, structure, edit and present radio programmes to professional broadcasting standard. Importantly, the very transferable skills you’ll acquire on this module can be used to create a wide range of other aural and audio projects.

In order to explore fully the range of possibilities available students are taught the necessary basics of sound recording, from types and use of microphones to various different kinds of recording equipment and editing suites. You’ll also learn the technological side of interviewing techniques, before progressing on to the techniques of finding and interviewing interesting and relevant contributors to obtain the right kind of material to use in a radio programme. As part of this module you will work in pairs to produce a five-minute audio guide on some aspect of the history of the College. The major piece of assessment, which is completed after the end of the module, will be to create a half-hour radio documentary. No previous knowledge or expertise of recording or editing is required and students often really enjoy this highly practical component of the MA in Public History course.
This module aims to introduce students to the theory and practice of oral history in the wider context of public history. Throughout the module we will examine the challenges and opportunities of employing oral history in a range of public history settings, including museums, the web, film & television, and community histories. Beginning with an exploration of the development of oral history as a rigorous academic field with strong grassroots and community-led foundations, we will go on to discover the ways in which oral history and public history have developed together as potentially radical ways in which to ‘do’ history. The module aims to provide students with the skills necessary to conduct and record an audio oral history interview to current broadcast and archive standards. Each student will undertake an oral history interview as part of a class project, with the completed interviews being deposited in the RHUL Archive.
In this module you will develop an understanding of the range, scope and access to physical and digital archives, museums and resources. You will learn how to evaluate and interpret documents, recordings and artefacts; how to construct a convincing historical narrative; and how to effectively communicate your findings in print, oral and digital formats. You will interpret a variety of evidence including manuscript and printed texts, oral testimony, film and photography, and material objects, as well as look at some key interpretative methods such as oral and digital history. You will learn from members of staff who are experts in their fields and from visiting speakers who are specialists and practitioners, examining a range of theoretical and methodological approaches to historical interpretation and its communication to academic and public audiences.
This module looks at history from the point of view of its practitioners. It approaches historians as academic researchers but also as social actors and cultural brokers both in dialogue with the past, but also part of the societies they inhabit. The module centres around a set of key questions that drive historical research as well as historiographical debate today. How do historians think and write about the past? Do they have a role to play in our globalized and very much present-minded world? And how has "history" become part of contemporary debates on identity politics, post-truth and the digital divide? To answer these questions, the module critically interrogates history’s ambivalent position between art and social science and asks how historical concepts and historical research practices intersect with methods of communicating the past to an academic and wider audience.
In lieu a conventional academic thesis, all students are required to design and create a project through which they communicate with the public about the past in a meaningful and engaging fashion. The project can take the form of an exhibition, a teaching resource, a website, a podcast, a documentary, a play, or indeed any substantial output through which the author conveys ideas about the past to a wider public. This can focus on any historical period or theme, and, over the years, students have truly excelled when engaging with the final project and produced some extraordinarily creative and professional pieces of work.
This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.

All modules are core

Teaching & assessment

In addition to working towards producing their final project in the second half of the year, full-time MA students are required to take a two-term core module (Pathways to the Past), a radio, podcast and social media communications module, an innovative oral history module and two more conventionally historiographical one-term modules.

Entry requirements

2:2

UK Honours degree (2:2) or equivalent, in History or a related subject in the Humanities or Social Sciences.

Candidates with professional qualifications and work experience in an associated area will also be considered.

Applicants come from a diverse range of backgrounds and we accept a broad range of qualifications (including first degrees in subjects other than History).

Interviews are usually offered to applicants and for those who are unable to attend a face-to-face interview will be interviewed by telephone.

One academic reference is required as part of the application before assessment is made. A second reference may be required.

Applicants may also be asked to provide a 1,500-2,000 word critical essay.

International & EU requirements

Bachelor degree from the American University of Armenia or a Specialist diploma with 80% or a GPA of 3.5 overall.

Bachelor degree (Honours) with a 2:2 or a Bachelor degree (Ordinary) with a Pass with 58% overall.

Bachelor degree or Fachhochschuldiplom/Diplom (FH) with a Grade 3.9 overall.

Bachelor degree (Bakalavr) or Specialist Diploma with 3.5 out of 5 or 70% overall.

4 year Bachelor degree from Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology (BUET) with a First Class Division or a Masters Degree following a 3 or 4 year degree.

Bachelor degree with grade 12 overall or the Licentiaat or Licence and other two cycle diplomas with grade 12 overall.

Diploma Visokog Obrazovanja Diploma Visokog Obrazovanja / Diplomirani with Grade 8

Bakalavar or Diploma of Completed Higher Education with a Grade 4 out 6 overall.

4 year Bachelor degree with 62%, a GPA 2.5 out of 4, Grade 6 out of 12 or grade C+ overall OR 3 year Bachelor degree with 73%, a GPA of 3.1 out of 4, Grade 8 out of 12 or grade B overall, depending on the grading scheme.

4 year Bachelors degree with an overall 70% to 75% or GPA of 2.8 to 3.0 out of 4.0 depending on the institution.

3 out of 5 overall in the Baccalaureus Prvostupnik or Visoko Obrazovanja/Level VII/1 (second level degree obtained on completion of 4-6 year course).

Overall 6.5 out of 10 or a GPA of 2.85 out of 4 in a Bachelor degree from a public university, Ptychion (from University of Cyprus) or Bachelor degree awarded by a private institution (the programme must be accredited by the Ministry of Education and Culture).

Bakalar with dobre (good), score of 2 or Grade C overall.

7 from 13 points grading system or 4 from 7 points grading system in a Bachelor degree, Candidatus Philosophiae or Professionbachelor.

University bachelors degree with a GPA of 2.4 overall or 65% overall

75%, 2.5 or C overall in a Bakalaurusekraad/Diploma, Magister or Magistrikraad

GPA of 1 where marks are in 1 - 3 system or GPA of 2.3 where marks are in 1 - 5 system in a Kandidaattii/Kandidat or Maisteri/Magister

Licence awarded from 2009 with grade 12 or Maitrise (pre-Bologna) with grade 11

Grade 3 overall in a Bachelor, Fachhochschuldiplom or Magister Artium

Bachelor degree with a Second Class Lower Division overall.

6 out of 10 overall in a Diploma from the Faculties of Engineering and Agriculture or a Ptychion (Bachelor degree) awarded by an AEI.

Bachelors degree degree with a Second Class Honours, Lower Division.

Egyetemi Oklevel /Foiskola Oklevel/ Alapfokozat with 3 out of 5 overall.

Baccalaurreatus with grade 6.5 out of 10 overall or Kandidatsprof / Cadidatus Mag with 6 out of 10 overall.

Bachelor degree with 55% to 60% overall or a CGPA of 5.5 to 6 out of 10 overall depending on the institution.

Bachelor degree or Diploma IV with overall GPA of 2.8.

Bachelor Degree/Professional Doctorate with 13 out of 20 overall.

Bachelor’s degree (four years) with 70% overall.

Bachelors degree with at least 75% overall depending on the mark scheme.

Diploma di Laurea or Licenza di Accademia di Belle Arti with 84 out of 110 overall.

Bachelor degree (Gakushi) with a B overall, dependent on the mark scheme.

Bakalavr or Specialist Diploma with 3.5 out of 5, 70% or 3.0 out of 4.33 overall.

Bachelor degree with a Second Class Honours (lower division) overall.

Bachelor degree with B or a GPA of 3.0 overall.

Bakalaura Diploms or Professional Bakalaura Diploms with Grade 6 overal.

Dipl Ing (FH) or Dipl Arch (FH) from Liechtenstein Technical College with a Grade 4 overall.

7 out of 10 overall in a Bakalauras or Specialist Diploma.

Bachelor degree, Diplome d?Ingenieur Industriel or Dipl?me d'?tudes Sup?rieures Sp?cialis?es with 40 out of 60 or 14 out of 20 (Bien) overall.

Bachelor degree with Class 2 Division ii, B or 2.8 out of 4.0 overall.

Honours degree with a Second Class (Lower Division) overall.

Bachelor degree or Doctoraal with Grade 6.0 out of 10 overall.

Bachelor degree Honours or Ordinary with an overall Grade C+ or Grade 3 out of 9 points grading system.

Bachelor degree with a Second Class Honours, Lower Division or overall GPA of 2.5 out of 5.

Visoko Obrazovanja with 7 out of 10 overall.

Bachelor degree, Candidatus Magisterii, Sivilingeni-r (siv. ing.) (Engineering degree ) or Sivil?konom (siv. ?k.) (Economics degree) Grade D or 2.6 to 3.2.

Bachelor degree with an overall GPA of 2.6.

4 year Bachelor degree or combined bachelors degree and Master degree for the duration of 4 years with 58% - 65% or a CGPA of 2.8 - 3.2 overall depending on your institution.

Licencjat, Inzynier or Bachelor with grade 3.71 overall.

Diploma de Estudos Superiores Especializadoswith grade 14 overall or Licenciado with grade 13 overall.

Bachelor degree with an overall GPA of 3.0 overall.

Diploma de Licenta, Diploma Inginer or Diploma de Arhitect with 7.0 out of 10 overall.

Bakalavr Bachelor degree or Specialist Diploma with 3.5 out of 5 or 70% overall.

Bachelor degree with 70%, 3.0 out of 5.0 or 2.8 out of 4.0 overall.

Diplom Visokog Obrazovanja (second-level degree obtained on completion of a four to six-year course) with 7.5 out of 10 overall.

Bachelor degree (from a public university) with a Class II (lower) overall.

Bakalar or Magister / Inzinier with vel'mi dobre (very good) or Grade 2 overall.

Diplomirani / Diplomirani Inzenir from Visoko izobrazevanje, University Diploma or Visoko Obrazovanja (until 1999) with 7 out of 10 (8 for Visoko Obrazovanja) overall.

Bachelor (Honours), Bachelor or Professional Bachelor degree with 60% or Second Class Lower Division.

Bachelor (Haksa) degree with 3.0 out of 4.5, 2.9 out of 4.3 or 2.8 out of 4.0.

Licenciado, Titulo de Ingeniero or Titulo de Arquitecto with 6 out of 10.

Bachelor degree from National University or Private University with 68% to 73% or GPA 2.8 to 3.0 depending on your institution.

Bachelor degree with a 2nd Class Honours (Lower) overall.

Bachelor degree GPA 2.6 to 2.8 depending on your institution.

Bachelor degree (post 2007) or Specialist Diploma (after 1991) with a Grade 3, 9 out of 12 or 4 out of 5 overall.

Bachelor degree with 80%, a GPA of 2.8 out of 4, C+ or Good overall.

Bachelor degree with a GPA of 2.6 overall.

Kandidatexamen with at least a Pass (godkand) overall.

Bachelor degree or Bang tot nghiep dai hoc with 6.5 out of 10.

English language requirements

IELTS: 6.5 overall. No subscore lower than 6.0.
Pearson Test of English: 67 overall. No other subscore lower than 64.
Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English (ISE): ISE III.
Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) grade C.
TOEFL iBT: 88 overall with Reading 22 Listening 20 Speaking 22 Writing 24.
Duolingo: 120 overall and no sub-score below 115.

Your future career

On completion of your MA in Public History at Royal Holloway you will be equipped to pursue a career in the world of museums and heritage sites, in broadcasting or film, with community organisations or in journalism. You should also have started to develop a valuable network of producers and representatives from production companies and links within the industry. Our Careers team will work with you to enhance your employability and prepare you for the choices ahead. Their support doesn’t end when you graduate; you can access the service for up to two years after graduation.

Our graduates are highly employable and, in recent years, have gone on to pursue a variety of really interesting careers with the BBC, Hampton Court Palace, the Imperial War Museum, the Houses of Parliament, the National Archives, and as engagement officers and historians with a variety of public history institutions and heritage sites. This module also equips you with a solid foundation for continued PhD studies.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £12,000

EU and international students tuition fee per year**: £27,000

Other essential costs***: : £350 (£200 for travel to heritage sites for the Pathways to the Past module; £50 for travel and interview expenses for the Voice of the Public and Public Communication modules; book purchases across all units approximately £100).

How do I pay for it? Find out more about funding options, including loans, grants, scholarships and bursaries.

* and ** These tuition fees apply to students starting their course on a full-time basis in the academic year 2026/27. Students studying on the standard part-time course structure over two years are charged 50% of the full-time applicable fee for each study year.

Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase all postgraduate tuition fees annually. For further information, see fees and funding.

** These estimated costs relate to studying this particular degree at Royal Holloway during the 2026/27 academic year, and are included as a guide. Costs, such as accommodation, food, books and other learning materials and printing, have not been included.