Structured PhD (Film Studies)

Course details

As part of the doctoral training available on the Structured PhD programme, students avail themselves of a range of interdisciplinary taught modules. The wide menu of available options include modules that:

• are Discipline-Specific in that they augment the student’s existing knowledge in their specialist area
• are Dissertation-Specific in that they supply core skills which are essential to completion of the research project, e.g., additional language skills
• acknowledge a student’s professional development, e.g., presentation of a paper at an International Conference
• enhance a student’s employability through generic training, e.g., Careers Workshops, Computer literacy.

Each student will be assigned a primary Supervisor(s) and a Graduate Research Committee made up of experienced researchers to plan their programme of study and to provide on-going support to their research.

The Huston School encourages PhD degree applications, its involvement is in collaboration with other Arts departments; students undertaking doctoral studies in film must also be registered in an existing department of the university (e.g., English, French, History, Information Technology, Sociology and Politics for example) depending on the topic of their research. Students are supervised by a small team comprising staff from the Huston School and the relevant department.

The aim of this research programme is the generation of a contribution to knowledge and understanding in Film, Television and Digital Media by means of academic research. During the programme, students receive training in research methods and complete a thesis based on a key research question. The length of the thesis is normally 60,000 to 80,000 words. The duration of research is usually.

Entry requirements

The minimum qualification necessary to be considered for admission to the PhD programme is a high honours, primary degree (or equivalent international qualification), or ’other such evidence as will satisfy the Head of Discipline and the College of his/her fitness’ (NUI Galway Calendar). It is more usual, however, for successful applicants to have already gained a Master's degree.