Application
admissions
Liverpool Residency 2023. Courtesy Aleks Slota.
The Expression of Interest (EOI) proposal is your first step towards admissions. Once received, we will contact you for a Zoom conversation with faculty and potential advisors. Within two weeks you will receive an admissions status letter.
Accepted applicants will be invited to make a commitment deposit. We will then arrange a Zoom chat to pair you with your advisors, and you will be invited to complete registration.
TIMING
The deadline for the current PhD admissions cycle is July 1, 2025.
The next start date is September 1, 2025.
ELIGIBILITY
Our programs are intended for focused, mid-career researchers.
A first degree (or equivalent) and ten years’ experience is a good fit.
Acceptance
Applications are accepted on a rolling admissions basis until the admissions deadlines.
The first ten accepted applicants to complete the TT registration form will have a place in the upcoming class. We keep a waiting list. Deferral is not possible but you are welcome to apply again.
We look forward to hearing from you!
PHD APPLICATION
ADMISSIONS REQUIREMENTS
The aim of the preliminary Expression of Interest (EOI) proposal is to determine if the Applicant can demonstrate the essential requirements for entry into the PhD program. At this stage, the proposed project is not fully developed. It will be further developed through coursework and in conjunction with advisors (if expertise is available for applicants' proposals).
CRITERIA
The Chair of Admissions will provide criteria for determining if an applicant is a strong candidate for research at this Institute before the interview. Criteria will include:
- Independent thinking.
- Curiosity.
- Interest in participating in the Institute's research community.
- Motivation and commitment to research project and program.
- Clear grasp of authors and theories proposed.
- An appreciation of relevant potential methodology and epistemologies.
- Understand the scope and ambition of the project.
- Foresight of potential routes for disseminating the proposed project's results to different audiences (academic and non-academic) and its potential impact on the proposed project.
- Relevance of an MPhil/PhD to the Applicant's praxis and career aspirations.
- Identification of the Applicant's potential for academic and, where applicable, practical work to assess capability to fulfil course and research requirements.
- Criteria specific to the research proposed.
- A grasp and appreciation of potential ethical considerations.
Expression of Interest
The online application form can be found here.
APPLICATION Contents
Approx. 1500 words, to include:
1. Project working title
Around 13 words – the following formula works well: 'Short quotation or related (evocative) phrase: a description of the project's subject area, scope and methods', so (for example): 'How Time Flies': Subjective perceptions of duration in practice performance research.
2. Your current creative research questions (maximum 3)
This is an opportunity to frame what you hope to discover and how you might do this. Your research questions, like much of this draft proposal, will change over the course of the project, but there is real value in trying to articulate the initial form of your research questions at this point of your project, as doing so can help you to tease out some of your tacit assumptions about your practice and your project.
'How' questions usually work best here; also, try to be as specific as you can with the ways in which your creative practice will potentially generate knowledge – what role will the practice play in answering each question?
Don't be afraid to foreground your work, your experience, and your thoughts.
3. Describe your project/goals in three sentences
The best way to approach this is to turn your Research Questions into Research Aims.
4. Contextual/Literature review
Three to four paragraphs: Ideally, you should show here that you have some knowledge of other research in this field.
If your project is informed by readings from across a number of different disciplines, then try to say what they are, and who the key thinkers/practitioners/theorists are who inform what you are planning to do. Why are they relevant? How does what you intend to do differ from and/or relate to what's gone before?
Remember that including any practitioners who relate to what you are doing is equally important in this section.
5. Methods (how you will achieve your creative research)
Here, you should include ALL of the activities you think you will need to undertake to pursue your research, so include the methods you use in your creative practice, as they are research methods, too.
Also, think about how you are going to capture or reflect upon what happens in your practice and its interaction with the materials and sources you've outlined in section 4.
There are many valid approaches to this, including reflective writing, phenomenological approaches of various kinds, auto-ethnographic and auto-theoretical methodologies, more traditional types of quantitative or qualitative data capture and analysis (such as Grounded Theory Analysis), and many others.
Don't be discouraged if you're not sure which approach you should take at this point; this will become clear over time and through discussions with your advisors. At the same time, try to start thinking about and articulating this as you write this section.
6. Proposed timeline/structure of the project (approx. three bullet points)
Indicate what you think you might need to do in each year of the project.
7. Indicative Bibliography (max. 10 publications)
What are the key texts or sources that you think will inform your research project?
Format your bibliography consistently, and include the author(s), year of publication, title, and publisher at minimum.
8. What support do you need from your Advisory Panel?
Please be as specific as you can here, as this really helps us to identify the best advisory team members to support your project.