Birkbeck, University of London

CRIMINOLOGY (MPHIL / PHD)

An MPhil/PhD is an advanced postgraduate research degree that requires original research and the submission of a substantial dissertation of 60,000 to 100,000 words. At Birkbeck, you are initially registered on an MPhil and you upgrade to a PhD after satisfactory progress in the first or second year. Find out more about undertaking a research degree at Birkbeck.

Birkbeck has a rich tradition of rigorous, socially engaged research into critical criminology and criminal justice scholarship. The Department of Criminology, founded in 2016, is a hub for this research. It is also home to the renowned Institute for Criminal Policy Research, a world-leading, influential research centre that produces the World Prison Brief.

MPhil/PhD Criminology students benefit from the supervision of internationally renowned experts and secondary supervisors, and programmes in criminology theory and research. Our academic staff understand crime through research on power and inequality, and are led by principles of social and racial justice. We focus on contemporary social and policy problems, from prison abolition, migration and deportation, and social welfare, to gendered violence, terrorism and drugs.

Our work covers a range of themes, from punishment, policing, security and surveillance to organised, corporate and state crime. We contribute to contemporary debates using different theoretical approaches including political economy, psychosocial, feminist, critical race and queer theory.

For further information about staff expertise and areas of supervision, please see our academic staff profiles. You may contact academic staff direct for support with an application to the MPhil/PhD programme, prior to formal submission.