The MRes provides a well informed and rigorous training, enabling individuals to open up their artistic and design creativity to new experiences, critical insights and theoretical understandings.

This programme provides preliminary training for doctoral level research. It is project led. This means that the student determines an initial trajectory of development building on their concerns of practice and its changing role in the public sphere.

We encourage projects that seek to work with other research disciplines as well as non academic sectors in society. Specialist areas include the nature of public/private space (urban as well as rural), artistic leadership, public pedagogy as well as the exploration and development of concepts, languages and techniques of art and design as practices of origination and representation.

The MRes is situated within a well established doctoral programme. PhD students are currently pursuing research in the following:

• 'Curating the Farm', investigating the synergies and generative relations between art and farming
• The Occupation and Craft of Independent Contemporary Curating Craft
• Modernity and the Commodification of National Identity in Scotland after 1970
• Empathy in Ecological Art
• The Practice of Art as a Form of Knowledge in Participative, Collaborative Art Processes
• Challenging Interactivity in Public Space through Digital Media
• The physical and temporal Boundaries of the Digitally Transferred Image through Fine Art printmaking practice.

The MRes is also closely aligned to postdoctoral research and research clusters within the Creativity Design and Innovation thematic area of the Institute for Innovation, Design & Sustainability Research 

The MRes is supported by the Graduate School of IDEAS that oversees the student's progression throughout the programme - registration, training and examination. The MRes is made up of three interrelated modules

• An individual art/design project (60 credits)
• Critical theory including the aesthetics and ethics, ecology, in depth case studies of selected artists and designers and public policy as it relates to art and design practices (60 credits)
• Research methodologies, both generic (RGU PGCert Modules) and specific including drawing, writing and documentation of Art/Design interventions in the public sphere, critical analysis and presentation of research (60 credits)

Each student is assigned a supervisor with relevant subject expertise to Masters level or beyond and also undergoes a needs analysis. One to one supervisory sessions take place every month. The cohort participates in monthly seminars run by postdoctoral/ doctoral researchers (DART). Students select from a programme of weekly postgraduate seminars delivered by research active staff as well as the annual Guest@Grays lecture programme. Past lectures have been delivered by internationally renowned artists and designers such as Suzanne Lacy, artist and activist; Helen and Newton Harrison, ecology artists; François Matarasso, cultural policy researcher; David Haley, ecology artist; Amanda Ravetz, anthropologist; Sophie Hope, curator and researcher.

Normal entry requirements are a first or upper-second class honours degree from a university in the United Kingdom or overseas, or a degree equivalent qualification, subject to the approval of Robert Gordon University.

 Applicants holding qualifications other than those above shall be considered on their merits and in relation to the nature and scope of the proposed research programme. Applicants will normally register for an MSc/PhD or MRes/PhD with transfer to PhD dependent on satisfactory progress. However, applicants who already possess a Masters degree which includes a significant research component could be registered directly for a PhD, subject to a satisfactory research proposal, and clear evidence of research expertise.

Any applicant whose first language or language of previous University-level instruction is not English must normally demonstrate competence in English. This should be a score of IELTS 6.5 or equivalent.

All course fees are reviewed annually and subject to change.

All applications should be made via the University's application form for research students, which is available using the web link below. Completed application forms should be accompanied by:

• Two academic references
• A transcript or mark sheet for all graduate qualifications
• Certificate of English language competency score of IELTS 6.5 in each of the four test components (Listening, Reading, Writing, Speaking) for applicants whose first language or language of university education is not English. Students who can demonstrate successful completion of tertiary (university or college) studies in a country whose national language is English, may be exempted from this requirement
• A draft research proposal, or at least a short summary to indicate the potential area of research (Refer to Section 8 of the Application Form)

For more information and to apply, please follow the link below:

• Applying to become a research student