Welcome

To find out about joining the Open University as a research student, visit our online Research Degrees Prospectus

The Open University has a long standing and well established research degrees programme with more than 1180 postgraduate research students working on a wide range of projects.

There are over 290 full-time directly registered students working on research projects at the University’s campus in Milton Keynes. Most of our part-time students are combining their research degree studies with jobs and/or family responsibilities.

In addition there are students registered for Open University research degrees at Affiliated Research Centres. Many of these are industrial, commercial or public sector research laboratories with a strong commitment to training researchers.

Whichever way you register for your research degree, you'll be supported academically by a supervisory team, and administratively by the Research Degrees Team who are on hand to help at any point in your studies.