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Research

Close up shot of green plants with plastic around them
Close up shot of green plants with plastic around them
Installation with flowers by Weiye Wang, 2019 MA Fine Art, Chelsea College of Arts, UAL | Photograph: David Poultney

Our academics play a prominent role in the UK's creative culture, with research that enhances public understanding of major issues and benefits the creative and cultural industries.

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Research with us

  • Visitor during the Summer Show
    Image taken by Alys Tomlinson
    PhD and MPhil degrees

    Discover an MPhil or PhD awarded in any subject area at UAL with qualified and inspiring supervision.

  • 2 people adjusting fabric on a mannequin
    3D Draping on the Stand Summer School, image courtesy of UAL
    UAL staff researchers

    Find out more about UAL's staff researchers.

  • Still from a fashion movie
    Incunabula (2014) Film by Marie Schuller in collaboration with Kaat Debo
    Research centres

    Research Centres operate across the University, providing a focus for excellent research in identified areas of strength.

Our research

  • Mina Jahić from the Rescuers Project PCRC, Credit - Dr Paul Lowe
    Research and projects

    Find current and completed research by our researchers and research students, spanning art, design and communication.

  • Photograph of a man wearing a giant fly mask in front of a flower mural
    Lucy Orta and Jorge Orta, Fabulae Naturae (2015)
    UAL repository  

    We hold, manage, share and preserve the research material produced by the University's researchers, and ensure that it reaches the widest possible audience.

  • Stanley Kubrick during filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey
    Stanley Kubrick during filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey (US/UK 1968) © Warner Bros. Inc., Stanley Kubrick during filming of 2001: A Space Odyssey (US/UK 1968) © Warner Bros. Inc.
    Archives and collections

    Learn about UAL's Archives and Special Collections Centre based at London College of Communication, which holds the Stanley Kubrick Archive.

Featured research stories

  • two hands with blue nail varnish
    Alessandra Ferrini, Gaddafi in Rome: Notes for a Film, three-channel video installation, 2022. Video still.

    UAL runner up in Doctoral category BAFTSS Awards 2023

    UAL PhD researcher, artist, and educator Allessandra Ferrini has been announced as a runner up for BAFTSS Awards 2023, under the ‘Doctoral Category’. Her essay film Gaddafi in Rome: Notes for a Film explored the 2009 meeting between Silvio Berlusconi and Muammar Gaddafi in Rome.

  • Small room with functional furniture including chair and bunk bed
    Cell Furniture Project - The Flip Chair

    Restorative justice through lifelong learning: the meaning of co-design and creative projects in prisons

    UAL projects with the prison sector over the past decade have consistently demonstrated the potential for design and creativity to develop life skills, promote wellbeing and empower people within our most marginalised communities.

  • 2 shots of colourful knitted and craft based fashion designs on models on a catwalk
    Designs in fishskin and crochet by by Foning Bao, Central Saint Martins BA Fashion Knit 2019. Photo courtesy of Elisa Palomino

    Best Green Fashion Film champions sustainable fishskin craft

    Elisa Palomino is a researcher at UAL Centre for Sustainable Fashion and Senior Lecturer on BA Fashion Print at Central Saint Martins. Her short film Preservation of Hezhen fish skin tradition through fashion higher education has won the Best Green Fashion Film award at the Fashion Film Festival Milano.

  • BFTT businesses
    BFTT Businesses

    Business of fashion, textiles and technology (BFTT) awards £1.2 million to fashion SMEs

    BFTT, led by University of the Arts London in partnership with some of the UK’s leading Universities, has awarded 10 of the UK fashion industry’s most innovative and sustainable brands over £1.2 million to support innovative and sustainable research.

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Our themes

  • Iris
    Iris, Rob Kesseler
    Living with Environmental Change  

    Through creative practice increasing understanding of environmental change, communicating the issues and designing for new business models, social innovations and sustainable living. Using design to reduce waste and to change producer and consumer behaviours.

  • Delamore, Glove
    Lifelong Health and Wellbeing  

    Designing for people’s life long economic, social and health impact, in order to maximise societal gains and minimise issues of dependency, isolation, and inequality.

  • Girl using virtual reality google
    Digital Anthropology Lab launch at London College of Fashion October 2015 photography by Hannah Puskarz BA Fashion Photography
    Digital Futures  

    Exploring through practice how technology affects lives, changes the way society interacts and impacts on communities, cultural production, future society, and economic growth.

  • ‘Scoliosis’ by Annelie Gross, MA Fashion Artefact, London College of Fashion, UAL Photograph by Jon Emmony for SHOWstudio.
    ‘Scoliosis’ by Annelie Gross, MA Fashion Artefact, London College of Fashion, UAL Photograph by Jon Emmony for SHOWstudio.
    Community Resilience  

    Using art and design to support communities in understanding how to develop innovative and sustainable solutions to the issues they face, through co-design, co-creation, socially responsive practices and social entrepreneurship.

Standards and ethics

At UAL ensure that our research is conducted according to appropriate ethical standards. Find out more about our Research standards and ethics.