School of Arts

The Westminster School of Arts is home to the Centre for Research and Education in Art and Media (CREAM), one of the most successful and highly rated Arts research centres in the UK. In the Research Exercise Framework 2014 CREAM achieved the highest ranking of any institution for a broad range of art and design research, with 45% of its research judged to be ‘world-leading’ and 63% deemed to be ‘world-leading’ in its impact.

CREAM has a portfolio of research across the disciplines of ceramics, visual arts, photography, film, experimental media, music and fashion. CREAM has 30 researchers and over 50 PhD students and is London’s leading research centre in visual and media arts, design and music and one of the top 6 such centres in the UK. Approximately half of CREAM PhD students are undertaking practice-based degrees.

As a CREAM doctoral researcher, you will join and participate in a lively programme of seminars and visiting speakers, ground-breaking conferences and symposia in collaboration with other institutions. CREAM has been a key participant in debates on practice-based research in audio-visual media and was a founding member of the AHRC-funded initiative, AVPhD.

How to apply

The Director of the CREAM PhD programme is Dr Ozlem Koksal who can be contacted by email at .

You can find more information about study options on our Mode of study page.

PhD via MPhil 

The majority of students will apply via the PhD via MPhil route. You can read more about the application process and entry requirements on our How to apply page.

Distance Learning

If you intend to apply for a research degree by distance-learning, you will need to demonstrate that you have appropriate local support for the duration of registration – please refer to the information on our Distance learning page.

PhD by published work

If you intend to apply for a PhD by Published Work please refer to the information on our PhD by published work page as the application process differs from the normal MPhil/PhD. Before applying, you should first make contact with the relevant academic for an informal discussion of your publications. You should only submit a formal application at this stage.

Apply now

Apply for the following subjects

Apply to our research degrees using the links below. 

  • Creative Media    
  • Film    
  • Music    
  • Photography    
  • Visual Arts
  • Fashion

You'll be able to select your subject area in the 'Supporting Information' section of the application form. 

January 2025 start

September 2025 start

Studentships

The Graduate School and each of the academic schools at the University of Westminster are committed to doctoral programmes which encourage and make possible excellent research. As part of this, we are committed to offering a range of studentships. 

Find out about current studentships being offered across the university on our Studentships page.

Research centres and groups