With its PhD programme, the University of Arts Linz establishes a shared framework for outstanding research projects from, between, and across all artistic, design-oriented, scientific, and technology-focused fields and disciplines represented at the university. The PhD programme is intended to support and further develop independent artistic and/or scholarly work. It creates a shared space for experimentation and possibility in which different forms of knowledge and practices, critical engagement, innovation, and original perspectives come together and are brought into dialogue.

Research at the University of Arts Linz is fundamentally defined as open-ended; pathways to knowledge may change in the course of the research process, and ephemeral moments, unconventional paths, as well as diverse practices of experimentation and rejection may form part of the PhD work. The specific research project must contribute new, independent insights and/or approaches to knowledge within the fields of reference central to the project and must also be communicable and open to critique at a later stage.

The development of a form appropriate to the projec (encompassing methodology, materials, media, and the format in which results are manifested) emerging from the research process is just as important as the development of an individual language and/or suitable media in order to document, contextualise, and reflect on the projects in a transparent and comprehensible manner. 

Application Process to the PhD Programme

Please refer to our PhD Handbook for details on the application process for the PhD programme.