Postgraduate research
We supervise postgraduate research in arts management, cultural policy, heritage and museology.
You will have expert supervision by experienced and established academic staff. You will join a vibrant and growing research community in ICP and the Faculty of Humanities, supported by the research environment, training and facilities of the University of Manchester. You will have access of the University's award-winning art gallery, The Whitworth, as well as The Manchester Museum and the John Rylands Library.
View our programmes, and the support available for our postgraduate researchers.
Programmes
- Arts and Cultural Management PhD
- Arts Management and Cultural Policy PhD
- Museum Practice PhD
- Museology PhD
Our research strengths include: digital heritage, archaeological curatorship, history, practice and theory of exhibitions, ethnography and anthropology, knowledge exchange and public engagement, cultural management and planning, contemporary science and the arts, performance and activism; and arts practices in formal and informal education.
Dr Kostas Arvanitis welcomes PhD applications in the following broad areas:
- Digital curating in museums, galleries and heritage environments
- Artificial Intelligence and immersive technologies in museums
- Social media and cultural participation
- Understanding engagement and impact through/of digital media in the museum and heritage sector
- Museum exhibitions in 'non places'
- Collecting the 'everyday'
- Spontaneous memorials
- Archaeological sites as 'open-air museums'
- Archaeological monuments in urban settings
- Archaeological curatorship and museum archaeology
- Interpretation and display of Greek archaeology
- Museum professionalisation
Dr Abigail Gilmore welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:
- International and UK cultural policy;
- Communities and their participation in the creative economy;
- The role of place in cultural management and cultural planning methodologies;
- Digital media and engagement with arts audiences;
- Collaborative learning models and partnerships between arts organisations and universities
Dr Emma Martin welcomes PhD applications in the following areas:
- Collectors and Collecting Histories; Ethnography and Asian Art
- Colonial Collecting and Knowledge Production
- Ethnographic Objects and Connoisseurship
- Object Histories / Biographies
- Histories of Museums and Displays; Ethnography and Asian Art
- Contemporary Collecting / Collectors; Ethnography and Asian Art
- Buddhist Art
- South Asian, Himalayan and Tibetan Art and Ethnography
- Histories of Curating and Curatorial Networks
- Curating / Displaying the Sacred
- Diaspora Engagement with Ethnographic Collections
Dr Simon Parry welcomes PhD applications in the following broad areas:
- Contemporary science and the arts
- Arts practices in formal and informal education
- Performance and activism
Prospective applicants for the PhD should review our staff page for a potential supervisor and contact the relevant person directly. Your email of enquiry should include a research proposal and a Curriculum Vitae detailing your prior education and any academic accomplishments or relevant employment.
