How do I prepare a research project in Art History?

Working up an idea into a substantial proposal is an essential investment in demonstrating your potential as a doctoral candidate. Many doctoral ideas emerge directly from a Masters’ dissertation. If that is the case for you, you will need to show how you can expand that research and place it in contexts that you would not have had space or time to explore in a shorter dissertation. It is harder to flesh out a completely untested idea, and you will need to set time aside to do some early research on your own.

You must read and follow our PDF guide Preparing a Research Proposal on the final format of the proposal. You may also find similar guides in our cognate disciplines of History and English, within the School of Arts and Humanities; these may be helpful in getting a wider sense of academic expectations at this level (each department has a Postgraduate Research section on its homepage). We all emphasise that this is nothing like writing a book, because of the particular academic requirements that you will need to demonstrate in your completed thesis (see What is a PhD in Art History?).

Once you are ready to share your proposal with us, and you hope that you have identified a potential supervisor, email [email protected] or the direct email address of the relevant academic. If we can, we will give you early feedback and suggestions on how to strengthen it. However, please also recognise that we may feel it is not sufficiently close to the appropriate level or format of doctoral research, in which case you might need to rethink for another year. Please also note that whether we accept you for a research degrees depends on the quality of your proposal and on whether we have the resources – in terms of time and expertise – to assemble an appropriate supervisory team for you.

Finally, please read our FAQs which will guide you towards answers to questions that are about OU procedures and processes rather than about Art History specifically.