MPhil/PhD Music at University of Plymouth

Studying PhD Music at the University of Plymouth will immerse you in a world of cutting-edge research under the umbrella of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Computer Music Research. Our research expertise ranges from musicology and composition to biomedical applications of music and development of new music technologies.

Musical research at the University of Plymouth is truly interdisciplinary: we actively publish our research outcomes in learned journals and conferences in the fields of music, digital arts, computing, engineering, psychology, neurosciences and medicine.

The University of Plymouth is a world-leader on musical research at the crossroads of arts and science, in particular computing, biology and psychology. This full time or part time doctoral programme is suitable for candidates interested musical research question or topic in mind, and wish to explore this through independent study in order to produce an original contribution to the subject.

You will be guided by a small supervisory team of academic experts under the direction of a Director of Studies. Even if you already have a masters degree, you will normally be registered as a ‘MPhil/PhD’ candidate and may apply to transfer to ‘PhD’ status around 10–22 months after registration, based on your progress to date. 

You will be expected to fully engage with skills development and training and to present your research in a range of scholarly contexts.

Your PhD will be assessed via submission of either a written thesis (approximately 80,000 words), or one that combines critical writing with artistic, creative and/or professional practice, and a viva voce (an oral examination).

For full details of what doing a PhD entails at the University of Plymouth, please visit our Postgraduate Research Degrees pages.