Doctoral degrees, such as the PhD, are the highest level of academic qualification. They allow you to prove yourself to be capable of conducting original research and making a contribution to a field of knowledge. As a postgraduate researcher you will usually contribute to the research life of your department by presenting papers at seminars and conferences. Doctoral researchers often teach undergraduate classes during their degree programme.

A combined research-and-taught Masters, such as the MRes, will provide you with both taught modules to increase your knowledge of a subject, and the opportunity to complete a research thesis with the appropriate training and supervision. MRes programmes combine research and taught elements, and are normally one year in duration if studied on a full-time basis or two years if taken part time. An MRes requires the production of a thesis of between 15,000 and 20,000 words on a specific research topic. Providing a structured study programme and a broad range of training, it is an ideal stepping stone to a PhD programme.

In addition to your Research Proposal, you’ll also need a personal statement of approximately 5,000 characters, explaining why you are interested in researching your chosen subject. This can be uploaded to the personal statement section in PDF or Microsoft Word format. Alternatively, you can type this within the application portal.

On your application, you will have been asked for contact details of one or two references. For some courses, you will need the references before a decision to be made eg. School of Education courses.

Please make sure you tell your references to expect contact from the University of Birmingham via email, requesting their reference. Please note that the contact email address of the referee must be an official email address and not a personal one (for example, gmail). We recommend that the referee sends back the reference in a PDF format as it is preferred if:

• The reference is on official headed paper with the organisation or university’s logo and address
• It includes the date, your details and the details of the referee
• A summary of how they know you and confirm your suitability for studying on the course you have applied for
• It should be signed by the referee with their official contact details.

If both your referees send back references which are not on official headed paper, you may be asked to send in additional references.

If you already have a written reference(s) and want to upload it on behalf of your referee(s), make sure the reference is a scanned copy of the original and that it is on official headed paper.

If you input your referee details, your referees will receive a reference request email from us as soon as you submit your application. When a referee provides the reference by clicking on the link in the reference request email, it will be automatically uploaded to your application.

A referee can also provide a reference by emailing it to us directly via pgadmissions@contacts.bham.ac.uk, it should be sent from their official email address and contain their full name and role. Once the email has been received, it will be sent for processing so that it can be uploaded to your application.

Your online portal will be updated when a reference has been received and processed but please allow at least 15 working days for this. If your portal has not been updated, this does not necessarily mean that the references have not been received as there can be a delay with the processing of references.

Please note that for the vast majority of our programmes, we do not require references in order for a decision to be made and your application will still be processed as usual. If an offer is made and the references are still outstanding, they will form part of the conditions of the offer.

If you have graduated

You will have been asked to upload a scan of your original or certified copies of your degree certificate(s) and transcript(s) on the Postgraduate Application Portal.

If you have not done so already, you can go back into the portal to upload your documents. Otherwise your application cannot be considered.

Please be prepared to send in your original or certified copies of your documents if the Admissions team requests to verify them.

If you don’t have certified copies of your documents and would prefer not to send the original, you can get copies certified by either the institution where you studied; a notary; or the British Council (students outside of the UK).

If you are an EU or International student and submitted your application with a University of Birmingham Overseas Representative, they will be able to verify your documents and there will be no need to send in copies by post.

If you are currently a student

You will have been asked to upload an interim transcript from your latest exams.

If you have not done so already, you can go back into the portal to upload your interim transcript. Otherwise your application cannot be considered.

Please be prepared to send in your original or certified copies of your degree certificate and final transcript upon graduation if the Admissions team requests to verify them.

If you don’t have certified copies of your documents and would prefer not to send the original, you can get copies certified by either the institution where you studied; a notary; or the British Council (students outside of the UK).

If you are an EU or international student and submitted your application with a University of Birmingham Overseas Representative, they will be able to verify your documents and there will be no need to send in copies by post. Please note, if you did not originally submit your application through an agent representative, you will not be able to ask an agent to help you verify and upload documents at this stage.

For the full list of suitable documents which you can use as your proof of English proficiency, you can visit our English language requirements page.

Make sure that your test results are no more than two years old from the start date of your course* at the University of Birmingham.

You can scan and upload a copy of your results to the Postgraduate application portal. You do not need to send in a copy of this to the University or bring it when you are verifying your documents with our representatives in your country as the University can verify the certificate using the reference code.

*If you are deferring your offer by one year, please make sure your test results will still be valid for when your course starts next year.

Exemptions

For those who have recently graduated from a University in the UK or majority English speaking country (e.g USA, Australia, New Zealand or Canada) you may be exempt from taking English language test. Please note that if your degree was delivered in English but not at a recognised university in the UK or majority English speaking country, our Admissions Office will require you to demonstrate your level of English with IELTS/TOEFL/PTE or alternative qualifications. You may also want to check our country pages as some countries may have certain exemptions, such as those who graduate from the University of Malta.

You will still need to present evidence of your qualifications studied in English to meet our entry requirement. Our Admissions office will then review your application and if exempt you will not be required to provide evidence of English language proficiency.

• Certified – having your original documents copied and then officially recognised with an official institution’s stamp or watermark so you do not need to send off the original.
• Verified – checked by the University or our representatives that the document is official and genuine.
• Certificate – degree certificate stating your name and degree awarded from your previous university/universities.
• Transcript – usually an additional document which comes with your certificate, detailing your grades achieved per module of your degree programme(s) and the overall grade.
• Notary - A notary is usually a lawyer (though not necessarily so in the United States) or person with legal training who is licensed by the government to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
• The British Council – has offices all over the world and support the educational and cultural exchange of students coming to the UK for university.
• University of Birmingham Overseas Representative – The University has overseas representatives listed on the Overseas Offices webpage, who can offer advice and certify your documents as well as verifying your documents on site rather than sending to the UK.