PhD in Arts

ARIA organises and supervises research and PhDs in, with and for the arts. The institute safeguards the special character of research in the arts and fosters collaboration and knowledge exchange with other artistic and scientific disciplines. It achieves this through unique partnerships among the Antwerp Schools of Arts and the University of Antwerp, in which the partners’ autonomy and integrity come first.

Artistic Research

Artistic Research (research in the arts) differs substantially from research on the arts (such as art history, musicology, performance studies etc). The results of an artistic PhD-project are in the first place artistic and are recognized as such by peers. The doctor in arts is however also willing to dialogue with his peers and to communicate about her/his research trajectory.

Practical Aspects

A PhD trajectory in the arts generally takes four years and is guided by two supervisors: one from the School of Arts and one from the University of Antwerp. An individual PhD commission follows the process. Members of this commission are the two supervisors, a chair coming from UAntwerp and an external member.

Download the full roadmap (explaining all the procedures and regulations) here.

The general doctoral regulations and the additional faculty regulations for Arts can be found on the Antwerp Doctoral School subsite.

The diagram 'Individual PhD commission, PhD jury and defence' shows a visual representation of the rules regarding the composition of the individual PhD commission, the PhD jury and the path towards the defence as described in the regulations.

The ‘Practical guide for international PhD students’ provides an overview of all practicalities of living in Belgium and at the University of Antwerp.

Doctoral programme

The title of ‘Doctor of Arts’ is conferred by the university. Students who are preparing a PhD in the arts are considered students of the university, more specifically of the Antwerp Doctoral School, where they are enrolled in the doctoral study programme. They have two supervisors: a member of the university’s senior academic staff (lecturer, senior lecturer or professor) and a supervisor from one of the Antwerp Schools of Arts. An individual PhD commission, consisting of three or four members, also monitors the progress of their doctoral research. You can find out more about all of these aspects in the brochure ‘Doing a PhD at the University of Antwerp’.

We work closely with docARTES, a doctoral study programme offered by the Orpheus Institute, for PhDs in music. PhD students focusing on the performing arts have the option of working with a.pass. For audiovisual and visual arts, we work with the other Schools of Arts in the context of SeminArt.

Admission to the doctoral study programme

ARIA’s steering committee oversees admissions to the doctoral study programme. Students are accepted following a binding recommendation issued by OR-ARIA, ARIA’s research board, which is a consultative body comprising researchers of the three Antwerp Schools of Arts and a number of research groups at the university. The student must then use a special form to apply for the programme, which can be downloaded from the website of the Antwerp Doctoral School.

Contact

ARIA Stadscampus
D.139
Prinsstraat 13
2000 Antwerpen
aria@uantwerpen.be