PhD Digital Media Arts
At Surrey, creativity and technology collide. Your skills and talents as a media practitioner, alongside intellectual curiosity, collaborative spirit, technical proficiency and sense of adventure, all come into play as you make use of the state-of-the-art facilities, great workspaces and dedicated multi-disciplinary supervision.
Why choose this
programme?
- Our vibrant and expanding Digital Media Arts PhD programme spans film animation, visual effects and computational arts, immersive media, digital acting, motion graphics and movement interfaces, as well as performance capture, machine vision and interactive cinema.
- You'll benefit from our extensive connections to the creative industries through our partnerships with film production companies, animation houses, the VFX community and their facilities and studios, plus industry networks such as BAFTA and the British Film Institute.
- Our Guildford location is a short train journey from central London, and a town which is home to some of the most well-regarded games developers, immersive media producers and web design agencies, including Supermassive, Electronic Arts and Criterion.
- On campus, we share a building and collaborate on a daily basis with the prestigious Guildford School of Acting. We also work closely with colleagues from Surrey’s engineering programmes and have found touchpoints in nearly every other discipline Surrey has to offer.
- We belong to TECHNE, an Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC)-funded doctoral training partnership, which provides access to comprehensive academic and professional training programmes, as well as the possibility of funding for your studies.
- Surrey’s multi-disciplinary Doctoral College will cater to your academic and institutional needs and is a great way of linking you with fellow postgraduate researchers from Surrey’s wide variety of other disciplines.
Statistics
Fantastic graduate prospects
100% of our Music and Media postgraduate students go on to employment or further study (Graduate Outcomes 2023, HESA)
Research excellence
We are ranked in the top 20 for the quality of our research outputs - Research Excellence Framework (REF) 2021
What you will study
This is a programme which will take you beyond the bounds of mere study. You will develop your own ground-breaking artistic practice into exciting and emerging fields such as virtual production, digital performance, pervasive filmmaking, contemporary animation, immersive audio-visual, experiential installation, digital art, creative computing and AI-based media production.
We will also help you deepen your contextual and theoretical knowledge in these and related fields. As a contemporary media practitioner and theorist, you will be fully encouraged to engage with topical research on current artistic and media practices, diversity, accessibility and cultural impacts.
We will also facilitate training in the latest tools and technologies to assist your creative development and enable you to create profound outputs that have impact.
If you have a proposal which you feel may match our supervision capabilities and expertise, or you are interested in the general areas we cover, please get in touch with us for an informal discussion by contacting j.weinbren@surrey.ac.uk in the first instance.
Assessment
Your final assessment will be based on the presentation of your research in a written thesis, which will be discussed in a viva examination with at least two examiners. You have the option of preparing your thesis as a monograph (one large volume in chapter form) or in publication format (including chapters written for publication), subject to the approval of your supervisors.
Location
This course is based at Stag Hill campus. Stag Hill is the University's main campus and where the majority of our courses are taught.
Research themes
- Emerging media
- Practice research
- Creative production
- Art, science and technology interactions
- Virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality
- New immersive experiences
- Visualisation and serious games
- Interactive storytelling
- Virtual cinematography
- Spectatorship, participation and play
- Interactive cinema
- Digital poetry
- Narrative and character portrayal in video games and interactive media
- Acting and performance for animation, games and film
- Embodied media
- Digital aesthetics
- Post-narrative theory
- Media psychology
- Generativity.
Discover more about our music and media research.
Research centres
Research support
The professional development of postgraduate researchers is supported by the Doctoral College, which provides training in essential skills through its Researcher Development Programme of workshops, mentoring and coaching. A dedicated postgraduate careers and employability team will help you prepare for a successful career after the completion of your PhD.
Facilities
As a Digital Media Arts PhD student, you’ll gain access to a wide range of professional film, audio, video, and interactive production facilities, including:
- High-performance GPU-based computing facilities
- Fibre connected film and television studios
- Motion/performance capture
- 4K cine cameras and lenses
- Lighting, sound and grip equipment
- Set-building facilities
- Photogrammetry
- Film and sound editing
- State of the art production software
- Extensive fast media storage
- VR/AR/MR/XR head mounted displays
- Projection
- Multiple GPU compute.
We have doubled the facilities space for music and media. Our Performing Arts Technology Studios have been upgraded and complemented by a £1.7m investment in state-of-the-art production and media suites.
All studios, edit rooms and acoustic rooms in the new space are linked by a new Dante digital audio network, providing audio interconnection between each room, plus video interconnects for flexible configurations of the recording spaces and studios.
UK qualifications
Applicants are expected to hold a minimum of upper second-class (2:1) UK degree and usually an MA in a relevant arts subject or appropriate professional experience.
Candidates submitting proposals that include practice-based research will be required to provide evidence of appropriate experience and expertise.
English language requirements
IELTS Academic: 6.5 or above (or equivalent) with 6.0 in each individual category.
These are the English language qualifications and levels that we can accept.
If you do not currently meet the level required for your programme, we offer intensive pre-sessional English language courses, designed to take you to the level of English ability and skill required for your studies here.
Selection process
Selection is based on applicants:
- Meeting the expected entry requirements
- Being shortlisted through the application screening process
- Completing a successful interview
- Providing suitable references.
Fees per year
Explore UKCISA's website for more information if you are unsure whether you are a UK or overseas student. View the list of fees for all postgraduate research courses.
* Please note: any start date other than September will attract a pro-rata fee for that year of entry (75 per cent for January, 50 per cent for April and 25 per cent for July).
October 2025 - Full-time
- UK
- £5,006
- Overseas
- £23,400
October 2025 - Part-time
- UK
- £2,503
- Overseas
- £11,700
January 2026 - Full-time
- UK
- £5,006
- Overseas
- £23,400
January 2026 - Part-time
- UK
- £2,503
- Overseas
- £11,700
April 2026 - Full-time
- UK
- £5,006
- Overseas
- £23,400
April 2026 - Part-time
- UK
- £2,503
- Overseas
- £11,700
- Annual fees will increase by 4% for each year of study, rounded up to the nearest £100 (subject to legal requirements).
Additional costs
There are additional costs that you can expect to incur when studying at Surrey.
Funding
A Postgraduate Doctoral Loan can help with course fees and living costs while you study a postgraduate doctoral course.
Application process
Applicants are advised to contact potential supervisors before they submit an application via the website. Please refer to section two of our application guidance.
After registration
Students are initially registered for a PhD with probationary status and, subject to satisfactory progress, subsequently confirmed as having PhD status.
About the University of Surrey
Need more information?
Contact our Admissions team or talk to a current University of Surrey student online.
Code of practice for research degrees
Surrey’s postgraduate research code of practice sets out the University's policy and procedural framework relating to research degrees. The code defines a set of standard procedures and specific responsibilities covering the academic supervision, administration and assessment of research degrees for all faculties within the University.
Download the code of practice for research degrees (PDF).
Terms and conditions
When you accept an offer to study at the University of Surrey, you are agreeing to follow our policies and procedures, student regulations, and terms and conditions.
We provide these terms and conditions in two stages:
- First when we make an offer.
- Second when students accept their offer and register to study with us (registration terms and conditions will vary depending on your course and academic year).
View our generic registration terms and conditions (PDF) for the 2024/25 academic year, as a guide on what to expect.
Disclaimer
This online prospectus has been published in advance of the academic year to which it applies.
Whilst we have done everything possible to ensure this information is accurate, some changes may happen between publishing and the start of the course.
It is important to check this website for any updates before you apply for a course with us. Read our full disclaimer.