Research in English at the University has an impressive publication record, including not only critical studies but also novels, plays and poetry.
We have a vibrant, rapidly-expanding postgraduate student culture, which is integral to the success of the department.
We have over 50 staff and research students in the Department of English including the Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy who is the Creative Director of the Writing School.
Get more information on the Centre for Research in English website.
We have TWO full 3-year Doctoral Awards in English to commence in 2012 and are inviting applications from suitably qualified candidates for nomination to these awards.
Prospective candidates should hold an excellent first degree in English, Creative Writing, Film or Cultural Studies and have completed, or be in the process of completing, a Masters’ degree in a relevant subject area.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Note: For further information about AHRC funding please see the AHRC Guidelines on Postgraduate Funding Opportunities on the Arts and Humanities Research Council web site. Please note applications are subject to an institutional selection process for nomination to the AHRC for an award.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has been awarded funding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Block Grant Partnership (BGP) Award Scheme.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supports world-class research that furthers our understanding of human culture and creativity.
We have TWO Professional Preparation Masters Studentships for study in the Department of Information and Communications at MMU beginning 2012.
Prospective candidates must have an offer of a place to study on either the MA Library and Information Management or the MSc Information Management.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Note: For further information about AHRC funding please see the AHRC Guidelines on Postgraduate Funding Opportunities on the Arts and Humanities Research Council web site. Please note applications are subject to an institutional selection process for nomination to the AHRC for an award.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has been awarded funding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Block Grant Partnership (BGP) Award Scheme.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supports world-class research that furthers our understanding of human culture and creativity.
Art and design at MMU has a distinctive 160-year history.
Today we provide a nationally recognized interdisciplinary environment for postgraduate education in the creative arts and industries and established relationships with galleries, museums, and the creative industries in the region and beyond.
Students have the opportunity to undertake research projects with over 70 nationally and internationally recognised researchers, historians, theorists, practitioners and professionals.
For further information on the Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) go to miriad.mmu.ac.uk/postgraduate or the Hollings website.
We welcome applications within the HEFCE subject category of Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory in the practices, industries, professions, theories and histories of Art, Architecture, Craft, Design, Fashion, Film, Media, New Media, Textiles, Urban Design and Tourism.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) and the Dalton Research Institute (DRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) seek qualified candidates for a fully-funded, three-year full-time Ph.D. studentship in the area of digital design.
The use of computers and associated technologies has a long history in art, design, architecture and other affiliated disciplines. Research at the intersection of informatics and art/design is developing quickly, due to the increasing availability of high-performance computers, and the accessibility of various software packages and programming tools and techniques. Recently, though, a new wave of digital creativity has emerged that seeks to go beyond the simple application of software to problems in art and design. Practitioners in this area are using novel computing techniques, in a ‘bottom up" fashion, to generate entirely new representations, structures and designs. Examples of this (from ongoing work at MMU) include the design of 3D structures using methods inspired by embryonic development, and the evolution of rules for pattern formation.
The successful candidate will be jointly-supervised by leading academics in both MIRIAD (Art & Design) and the DRI (Science and Engineering), and will belong to both Research Institutes. MIRIAD and the DRI are embarking on an ambitious programme of formal collaboration, and the student will be expected to contribute fully to this. Trained in art/design/architecture or a related discipline, you will have substantial computational skills, at least to the level of having a good working knowledge of scripting and/or programming languages. You should be prepared to cross disciplines during the course of your research, and be willing to play a role in bridging the gaps between disparate research fields.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The Manchester Institute for Research and Innovation in Art and Design (MIRIAD) at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) seeks qualified candidates for a fully funded, three year full-time Ph.D. MIRIAD Industry-based Studentships within the HEFCE REF2014 Unit of Assessment for Art & Design.
The new universities with their origins in the former art schools have a long history of relationships with industry in the disciplines of art, design, architecture and other affiliated subjects. The nature of the doctoral experience is developing quickly, due to growing awareness of the value of applied research and the contribution it can offer to both the industry in question and to the postgraduate researcher in terms of academic excellence combined with enhanced professional experience and skills.
We seek well-qualified applicants to work in this exciting new area. The successful candidate will be jointly supervised by leading practitioner professionals from industry and academics in the Faculty of Art and Design. Trained in art/design/new media/architecture or a related discipline, you will have substantial skills, at least to Masters level. If appropriate you should be prepared to cross disciplines during the course of your research, and be willing to play a role in bridging the gaps between industry and academic research.
Applications should follow the normal MIRIAD Research Degree procedures and you should pay attention to the guidelines for applicants contained in this pack. It is important you feel ownership of the project and you should develop your own research proposal within the general framework of one of the Industry-based projects set out below:
The Malcolm Garrett collection includes books and memorabilia dating back to the graphic designer’s earliest childhood interests in the imaginative depiction of ‘future technologies’ in TV & film-related science fiction and cold-war era espionage.
It embraces such ‘visions of the future’ both in the realms of fantasy and in the dreams of a better tomorrow explored at events such as the New York World Fair of 1939 and the Festival of Britain in 1951. This fascination and appreciation of ‘future technologies’ has informed Malcolm Garrett’s development as a designer, most notably in his early use from the mid 80s onwards of digital and screen based technologies in the practice of design and publishing.
This practice-led research project will interrogate the possibility of a ‘graphic history of the future’ though a critical analysis of the archive and an engagement with digital technologies in graphic design.
The applicant will benefit from the professional experience of the graphic designer, Malcolm Garrett, as a member of the supervisory team.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This project builds on the developing partnership between MMU and the National Football Museum, which opens its new site in Manchester in May 2012. The new Museum holds the world’s greatest football collections, totaling over 140,000 items, including the FIFA Collection.
While based at the museum the student will gain a wide range of museum-based skills, training and experience as a member of the collections team.
While not wishing at this stage to over-determine the precise shape of the project, recognising that the scope of the material held in the Museum’s collection will facilitate the candidate in shaping his/her own focus and analysis, the study will be focussed on the visual culture of football, as expressed through the range of publications relating to and reflecting fandom. Depending on the period of study chosen, this could encompass a vast range of material, include fanzines, magazines, comics, annuals, novels, autobiographies, advertisements etc. All of these are very well represented in the collections of the Museum, which holds, for example, over 1,000 football fanzines.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
In 2007 the Chartered Institution for Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) established an Art and Environment Network (AEN).
As a professional body, representing scientists, engineers, academics and commercial consultants in the water and environment industries, CIWEM recognises the need to include creative ways of thinking and working. As the Institution moves its Head Quarters to new premises in London, the student would benefit from being able to study the development of CIWEM's commitment to the arts. The new premises will, also, provide very good workspace facilities for the student’s 15 months residency. CIWEM is very interested in how arts-led, practice-based methods may be applied to and interact with subjects that have been the preserve of quantitative methodologies.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
2012 marks the two-hundredth anniversary of the birth of Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin, one of the most important architects of the nineteenth century. The church of Our Lady and St Wilfrid and the adjacent presbytery represent a unique opportunity to study a group of Pugin’s buildings in something near to their original state.
The understanding and interpretation of existing or historic buildings is of fundamental importance to critical practice in the architectural profession. The partner organisation is Francis Roberts Architects, an architectural practice with a reputation for sympathetic and skilful architectural conservation work.
The candidate will get experience of working with a conservation architect and will lead/help in the preparation of a conservation plan for the buildings by means of a thorough analysis of the buildings, historically and materially. The study will consider the changes that have been made to the building and will attempt to discover original decorative scheme, constructional and decorative techniques in relation to contemporary conservation practice.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The partnership with Hat Works the Museum of Hatting, Stockport will see academic research training supplemented by museum based professional and practical training.
The project is centred the Christy’s collection and associated Hatting & Millinery archives. The collection of Hats and Millinery ephemera was acquired with the closure of the Christy’s Hat Factory in 1997.
The aim of the project is to create an innovative and accessible archive of information encapsulating many aspects of the craft of millinery. A possible outcome of the research would be to hold a millinery symposium to discuss, explore and analyse the millinery profession within the UK today and how the museum can increase its profile in research, scholarship and collaborative opportunities.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This student will be embedded with A Fine Line, to participate in, document and critically reflect upon the next stages of the Crafts Council funded project Craft Who Cares.
The residency element of the project will be practice-led, and will employ action research through studio-based experiment, and reflection in action, to develop the project outcomes and findings. A Fine Line will provide first hand experience of work within an independent arts management organisation, with regular access to their day-to-day workings, subject knowledge and professional expertise. This will begin with a 12 month internship (at 2 days per week) which will involve the student in the project fundraising process, and in the delivery of a programme to include one international exchange residency, a national touring exhibition, and a project publication. This will be followed by a 3 month international crafts research residency, which is expected to take place in India.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The project builds on the established working relationship between Manchester City Council, Manchester School of Architecture and Manchester Design LAB.
This studentship examines the role that Design and Technology can play in making Manchester more age-friendly in terms of reducing isolation, facilitating societal cohesion and inclusion and enhancing the quality of life. Can design act as a catalyst to encourage private investment through new technologies and how have cities other than Manchester approached the problem?
Based with the Valuing Older People Team the researcher will approach the research questions from a design practice perspective to facilitate and significantly broaden understanding and insight into intergenerational and age-related issues taking into consideration the many facets of human interaction with urban environments, media and materiality.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The economic slump that began in 2008 has provided the opportunity to assess critically the European urbanism architecture and design of the two decades since the end of the Cold War. For this project CUBE which has a very strong national and international reputation will provide the basis of a network of architects, designers and European architecture centres to facilitate data gathering, seminars, interview and survey materials. The use of the venue for events and exhibitions during or at the conclusion of the project is also an aspect to be programmed and developed in conjunction with the candidate.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The project builds on the established working relationship between Manchester City Council, Manchester School of Architecture and Manchester Design LAB.
The designed environment of the City must support people in all their activities. This requires an in-depth understanding of ageing in daily life, our inevitable shifting relationship with the urban environment, and an inclusive approach to design. Based with the Valuing Older People Team the researcher will approach the research questions from a design practice perspective to facilitate and significantly broaden understanding and insight into intergenerational and age-related issues taking into consideration the many facets of human interaction with urban environments, media and materiality.
This design research will be inform strategy, making potential cases for change and design development in this city and informing global approaches to age-friendly design in urban areas.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This MIRIAD Industry-based Studentship will be a partnership between MMU and i+g Cohen which have been at the forefront of textile recycling in the UK since 1959. The aim of the project is to analyse methods of collecting textiles and clothing waste within the UK and evaluate its impact on the economy; leading to the development of a cost effective model to support recycling and re-use in retail. Recently the company has tendered for a WRAP project, WRAP (Waste Resources Action Programme) is the lead delivery board of DEFRA.
The purpose of this project is to investigate and assess what impact the source of recovered textile feedstock has on the quality and subsequent value of those within reuse and recycling markets via demonstration trials. Textile feedstock is defined as waste clothing, footwear and general household textiles and will be obtained from a variety of sources including charity, textile banks, donations and local authority kerbside collections. This project is due to be completed in April 2012 and would lay the foundation for this proposed PhD studentship.
The partnership will enable the researcher to develop professional skills and to contribute to business and society at large.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This project is with Cornerhouse, Manchester and coincides with its move to GMAC, the Greater Manchester Arts Centre.
The candidate will examine new models of digital and performative engagement, to seek new areas that explore GMAC’s strengths in contemporary visual arts, the moving image, and performance. The programme of research will look at synergies between these artforms under a digital umbrella, and will examine, new models of engagement with artists’ film, participatory and cross artform potential, and digital collaborations, all within the context of Performance.
The studentship will be engaged in a practice based research process, and that the successful candidate will have an understanding of new media, contemporary art and artists’ moving image.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This studentship is organised around a partnership between researchers based within the Contemporary Art History (CAH) programme and staff within the MMU Special Collections. The project will involve research and professional work in relation to the development of an exhibition on the subject of manifestos and utopian thought and will involve the integration of both academic and professional expertise in terms of a crossover between historical/theoretical concerns and professional practices related to curatorship and archiving.
The doctoral researcher will have a base and workspace in Special Collections, which will provide a strong context for their professional development.
The project is framed by a concern with the imaginative power of the manifesto as a rhetorical and exemplary form within cultural modernism and progressive and radical political movements during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This imaginative power is understood to be of value against the dominant consensual and conformist political backdrop of the current era. The aim of the project is to gather theoretical materials, manifestos and manifesto-like artefacts (artworks and designed objects) as well as documentation (texts, photographs, film-footage) of manifesto-based projects for the construction of an exhibition that explores and presents the past and current relevance of the manifesto as a utopian aesthetic and political form.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The Ultimate Holding Company (UHC), the project partners have a reputation for high quality visual arts practice in cross disciplinary collaboration and public engagement. The UHC are currently supporting the development of Hotspur House: a mill which has an established history of working with small creative businesses and nurturing new creative talent. It is situated in a strategic area in relation to the development of Manchester’s creative economy.
The project provides a unique opportunity to explore the role of the artist/designer within a regeneration context. It also supports practitioners in working across discipline boundaries in order to locate their work within a commercial or critical context. It will analyse the potential of such collaborations for the undergraduate curriculum as a sustainable model within an urban regeneration context. Interrogation of the relationship will inform pedagogic developments within the undergraduate curriculum, supporting the development of a new model for studio working based on large collaborative workshops rather than a more traditional individual studio approach.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Disproportionate amounts of energy are currently expended maintaining comfortable internal climates for buildings. Intelligent Façades can play a significant role in reducing this energy demand and can be designed to eliminate their construction waste through considering their future Lifecycle. Working alongside façade manufacturer Lindner will enable the exploration of an eco-effective design ethos, and contribute to a global reduction in carbon emissions.
The researcher will work periodically with the Industrial partner/manufacturer at their facilities in the UK and Bavaria to become familiar with the issues of materials, the design process, detail and assembly/disassembly
Students will have the opportunity to visit building Case study projects and contribute to a network of information exchange between academics, designers, manufacturer, contractors and client. The student will become part of a research team whose objective will be to disseminate findings to internationally recognised conferences on climate change and sustainability.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The eligible course for the PPM in Fine Art is MA Fine Art. The eligible courses for the PPM in Design are MA Architecture and Urbanism; MA Design; MA Design and Art Direction; MA Landscape Architecture; MA Textiles and MA Three Dimensional Design.
Get more information and the application form at the Art & Design website.
The deadline for all applications is Monday 2nd April 2012.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has been awarded funding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Block Grant Partnership (BGP) Award Scheme.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supports world-class research that furthers our understanding of human culture and creativity.
This is a practice-as-research project inquiry interrogating the concept of practitioner-centred knowledge insight in the development of artistic practice specifically generated through critical and creative dialogue with individual collaborators and/or specific community groups. In recent years the emergence of PaR in the academy has brought into question the means by which artistic research may be brought forward into a more openly dialogic frame, as such process, rather than product, and the value of documentation becomes foregrounded in the practice.
The candidate will develop catalysts and contexts within which a series of dialogical exchanges will occur developing material for further encounter exchange. The position of practitioner/researcher in relation to the development, documentation, exposition and curation of these elements as traces of co-production will be explored in terms of ethics, legitimacy, knowledge and value.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
A practice-as-research or practice-based enquiry considering how the dialogical potentials of social media can contribute to knowledge curation, as established in existing curatorial research within the department (LINDEN). The PhD would focus on contributing to or facilitating the curated knowledge exchange between public and artistic communities, developing a range of methods for documentation, exposition and curation of artistic, practitioner-centred knowledge whilst retaining the integrity of the individual artistic practices.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
In recent decades, numerous leading practitioners of music history, theory, psychology, criticism and philosophy, ethnomusicology, cultural and performance studies (eg Fred Lerdahl, Richard Taruskin, Roger Scruton, Pieter van der Merve, Leonard Meyer, Karol Berger, Richard Parncutt, Andrzej Rakowski) have suggested that the discrepancy between what composers produce and how listeners perceive the result is the most pressing problem of contemporary classical music. This practice-as-research project proposes to work with examples of microtonal music, from the viewpoints of composers, perfomers and listeners, to discover points of convergence and divergence, with the objective of documenting some principles of what Lerdahl calls "listening grammars".
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
A practice-as-research or practice-based enquiry focussing on the development of a range of methods that demonstrably represent the social and economic value of - and impact from - event based activities in the contemporary performance arts. The enquiry will draw from the more general current impact studies (e.g. commissions, Arts Council Case studies, AHRC and EC7 guidance) as well as sociological underpinnings and consider how these specifically relate to the specific areas of contemporary performing arts. It will include the development and evaluation of applicable methods, as applied to pre-existing arts organisations and events.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This practice-as-research or practice-based project will focus on developing effective ‘enterprise models’ and ‘creative frameworks’ that demonstrably maximise and embed sustainability in creative social enterprises within the contemporary arts, considering related concepts of creative leadership, community development (instead of community engagement), social capital, community resilience, motivational factors, drive, incentivisation, etc. It is contextualised as part of one of the largest challenges in contemporary society, i.e. the considerations that in this new era of the Big Society we have to establish models that ensure that proposed citizen-led initiatives, be it charitable organisations, social enterprises or community led projects, are sustainable over long periods of time. In this PhD project this will be considered in a specific creative arts context, using examples of emerging music related social enterprise projects.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Technology, especially communication technology, has been promoted as being able to ‘bring people together’. But with increased gadgets, are we really any more ‘connected’ as a global society? The popular author Clay Shirky has said, ‘intimacy doesn't scale. You can have an intimate dinner party for six but not for sixty. More is different…’ In a context of more face-time, more demands for immediate response, and pervasive use of technology in the everyday, how has performance responded? The aim of the proposed practice-as-research programme is to investigate how technology changes notions of ‘intimacy’ and specifically how theatre and performance challenges, represents and alters these notions.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
This research team is particularly interested in working with professional and advanced level student composers on the development of a portfolio of compositions. This research project will be of particular interest to composers looking to develop their professional practice within an academic framework. Successful candidates will position and develop their work within a variety of contextual, theoretical and analytical frameworks with the support of the Supervisory Team. Whilst the development of a portfolio of compositions will be a major outcome of the research work, the research ‘insights’ exposed during the research inquiry, will also be documented in the form of ‘complementary writing’.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
The intimacy of the interaction between human and machine is exposed through ‘live’ performance and this has resulted in the relationship between musician and machine being in a process of constant negotiation. Whilst there has been much discussion within the performing arts tradition on notions of ‘liveness’ in performance, very little has been explored within the emerging world of laptop performance. Through the development of a practical and theoretical portfolio of work, this project will explore the development of an emergining laptop performance practice. As Cascone once said: ‘Falling into neither the spectacularized presentation of pop music, nor the academic world of acousmatic music, laptop musicians inhabit a netherworld constructed from performance codes borrowed from both’.
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
If you have a research interest which falls outside the projects described above but is in a related discipline, for exceptionally strong applications we will consider providing a fully funded studentship (Home/EU only).
We are pleased to offer FOUR full Research Studentships to start in the academic year 2012–2013.
The studentships are only available to Home UK and EU candidates. Successful candidates will register for a PhD degree. For these awards, the Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research (IHSSR) at Manchester Metropolitan University will provide home tuition fees (approx £3,800 p.a. for 2012/2013) and a subsistence bursary (£12,000 p.a.)
The studentships may be taken in any of the areas of activity within the Institute:
Register your interest on-line and we will contact you to discuss this opportunity.
Or apply immediately using the application form.
Potential applicants should refer to the IHSSR website or visit the respective departmental websites to see areas of research expertise within the Institute.
Applicants for research studentships in an area of English will also be considered automatically for the AHRC-funded studentships available in this subject.
Applications are subject to an institutional selection process for nomination for an award.
Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) has been awarded funding through the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) Block Grant Partnership (BGP) Award Scheme.
The Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) supports world-class research that furthers our understanding of human culture and creativity.