A PhD is undertaken for a variety of reasons: as preliminary training for an academic career; as an advanced degree that may contribute to a future career in other sectors; or simply as an exciting and rewarding pursuit in its own right. Your final dissertation, which will be up to 80,000 words, is expected to make an original contribution to knowledge.

Studying at Warwick means joining a supportive and world-leading network of experts with staff members who are specialists across a broad spectrum of topics.

Our warm and vibrant research community is one of the largest in the UK, with around 110 postgraduates every year. We offer a full calendar of seminars, symposiums and conferences, with a busy diary of speakers from around the world. We also offer funding for postgraduate study, and career development support during your time here.

You will study alongside ambitious scholars and researchers at the forefront of their fields. We want you to harness your intellectual ambitions and interests, and bring your own distinct personal experiences and circumstances to bear on your work.

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Research proposal guidance

Our research is interdisciplinary and comparative. We have particular strengths in American studies, eighteenth and nineteenth-century studies, environmentalism and ecocriticism, gender studies, the literary and cultural history of the medieval and early-modern period, performance studies, poetics, and World Literature. Our major research centres include Critical Environments, Poetry at Warwick, and the Warwick Research Collective (WReC). We also work closely with the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, Centre for Research into Philosophy, Literature, and the Arts, Early Modern and Eighteenth-Century Centre, and Yesu Persaud Centre for Carribean Studies.

We particularly welcome research applications in the following research areas.

As a research student, your closest contact will be with your supervisor, or co-supervisors, who will meet with you regularly to discuss your work. The supervisory relationship is at the heart of your research. Your supervisor(s) are experts in their field who will guide you throughout your degree and will agree upon a programme of reading, research and writing with you.

You can ask any academic from our department to be your supervisor. See our staff pages for more details and to see whose research interests align with yours.

You will also be able to seek advice from our Director of Graduate Studies, who oversees our research students; and participate in sessions organized by our PG Professionalization Officer, who organizes seminars on employment in both the academic and non-academic sectors. With your peers, you will have the chance to participate in seminars, conferences, reading groups, and symposia; and you will be encouraged to apply for internal funding to support research trips and participation in academic events outside of the university.

Entry requirements 2:i undergraduate degree (or equivalent) in a relevant subject. A Master's degree in a relevant discipline

English language requirements Band C
IELTS overall score of 7.5, minimum component scores of two at 6.5/7.0 and the rest at 7.5 or above

International Students
We welcome applications from students with other internationally recognised qualifications. For more information please visit the international entry requirements page.

For up-to-date information concerning fees, funding and scholarships for Home, EU and Overseas students please visit Warwick's Fees and Funding webpage.