royal holloway university creative writing

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American Literature and Creative Writing

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Thank you for considering an application.

Here's what you need in order to apply:

• Royal Holloway's institution code: R72

Make a note of the UCAS code for the course you want to apply for:

• American Literature and Creative Writing BA - Q324
• Click on the link below to apply via the UCAS website:

Key information

Duration: 3 years full time

UCAS code: Q324

Institution code: R72

Campus: Egham

American Literature and Creative Writing (BA)

By combining the study of American Literature and Creative Writing, you'll become an informed and critical reader of the American literary tradition, as well as a confident and expressive writer - whether specialising as a poet, playwright, or author of fiction.

Studying at one of the UK's most dynamic English departments will challenge you to develop your own critical faculties. Learning to write creatively and critically analyse in tandem, you'll be exposed to a huge variety of literature while you develop your own writing practice.

You'll also examine a variety of areas in American literature, including the literature of the first encounter, nineteenth-century and African-American writing, satire, New York School poetry, drama, the urban novel and writing about music and the novella. You will have the chance to take courses in other departments, studying American history or film, to broaden your understanding of America.

Learn how to create, criticise and shape an artistic work: a valuable life skill with uses beyond writing poetry, plays or novels.  From journalism and website creation to advertising and academic publishing – you'll be able to use the skills you pick up in character, voice, ambiguity, style and cultural context. You will be taught by internationally known scholars, authors, playwrights and poets who are specialists in their fields, producing ground-breaking written work and appearing at literary festivals around the world, including practicing American novelists Ben Markovits and Douglas Cowie.

• Critique texts considering literary devices such as form, genre and periodisation.
• A range of literature modules from poetry to novels.
• You can specialise as a poet, playwright or author of fiction.
• Be taught by world-renowned American authors.
• The chance to spend a year at a university in the USA.

From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Course structure

Core modules.

This module will introduce you to American Literature to 1900, and to issues, concepts and key contexts for the study of American Literature more broadly.

In this module you will develop an understanding of how to think, read and write as a critic. You will look at the concepts, ideas and histories that are central to the ‘disciplinary consciousness’ of English Literature, considering periodisation, form, genre, canon, intention, narrative, framing and identity.

In this module you will develop an understanding of a variety of major poems in English. You will look at key poems from the Renaissance to the present day. You will engage with historical issues surrounding the poems and make critical judgements, considering stylistic elements such as rhyme, rhythm, metre, diction and imagery. You will examine poems from Shakespeare to Sylvia Plath and analyse topics such as sound, the stanza and the use of poetic language.

In this module you will develop an understanding of a range of literary and cultural writing forms through reading, discussion and practice. You will look at poetry, drama and prose fiction alongside stand-up comedy, adaptation, translation, songwriting, and other forms of creative expression and articulation. You will learn how to offer clear, constructive, sensitive critical appraisals, and how to accept and appropriately value criticism of your own work.

In this module you will develop an understanding of a range historical perspectives on the function, forms, and value of creative writing. You will look at the genesis of particular genres, such as the short story, the novel and the manifesto, and consider relationships between historical genres and the contemporary writer. You will interrogate your own assumptions about creative writing and critically examine the relationship between creative writing and society.

In this module you will explore American Literature in the twentieth century, looking at a selection of key topics and movements as American literature moves from realism to modernism and post-modernism. Topics covered may include race, gender, genre and the impact of specific historical events like the Great Depression and the Cold War.

You will take two of the following:

• Playwriting

You will choose one of the following modules. Each of these modules consists of a year-long independent project, working closely with a staff supervisor from the appropriate field.

• Playwriting 2

This module concentrates on a particular mode of writing, genre, theme, issue or idea. You will be encouraged to make creative work in relation to the focus, and develop your writing practice in relation to wider contexts relevant to the contemporary writer.

Creative Writing Special Focus courses are open to both creative writing and non-creative writing students.

Optional Modules

There are a number of optional course modules available during your degree studies. The following is a selection of optional course modules that are likely to be available. Please note that although the College will keep changes to a minimum, new modules may be offered or existing modules may be withdrawn, for example, in response to a change in staff. Applicants will be informed if any significant changes need to be made.

• All modules are core

An introduction to American literature via the tradition which David Reynolds labels 'dark reform'; a satirical and often populist mode which seek out the abuses which lie beneath the optimistic surface of American life, often through grotesque, scatological, sexualized and carnivalesque imagery. You will explore the contention that because of America's history, with its notions of national consensus and fear of class conflict, political critique in America has often had to find indirect expression.

This module will familiarise you with a range of influential critical and theoretical ideas in literary studies, influential and important for all the areas and periods you will study during your degree.

Discover the 'dark' topics of late-Victorian and Edwardian literature. Perhaps the most important cultural influence on these texts is the negative possibility inherent in Darwinism: that of 'degeneration', of racial or cultural reversal, explored in texts like Wells's The Time Machine, and often related to the Decadent literature of Wilde and others.

The principal aim of this course is to immerse second-year literature students in the world of digital tools for exploring literature. Through extensive hands-on use of online parsing tools, algorithmic methods for assessing aspects such as word co-association, various types of visualization packages and a great deal more besides, students will realise the remarkable affordances of digital tools in reading and interpreting texts.

The objective of this course is to prepare literature students for work in the creative industries by developing their use of digital technologies in responding to literature. In using digital technology to respond to literature both critically and aesthetically, literature students can become adept at various practices that are of immediate, valuable use in the creative industry workplace. This course will cultivate these practices, show how they grow organically out of a love for reading and writing, and demonstrate how they are skills that are in great demand in a wide range of creative workplaces.

• Special Topic: The Great American Novella

Investigate a variety of literature produced about Chicago by writers who lived and worked in the city. Although the module will focus on novels, it will also include some poetry and nonfiction prose. You will develop knowledge of the historical development of Chicago in the 20th century, as seen through its writers, from 'muckrakers' such as Theodore Dreiser and Upton Sinclair, through the boosterism of Carl Sandburg, the ‘urban naturalism’ of James T. Farrell, Richard Wright and Nelson Algren, to the later interpretations of Saul Bellow, Mike Royko, Studs Terkel, Stuart Dybek and Gwendolyn Brooks.

• African-American Literature
• Of Circumference: Emily Dickinson

Teaching & assessment

You will take the equivalent of four units each year.

Teaching is mostly by seminars and lectures, with an additional small tutorial group in year one. These methods are backed up by individual consultations for feedback on essays throughout the degree, and dissertation supervision in year three.

All students will also belong to study groups and undertake co-operative work for some courses, and take training courses run by the Library.

Assessment is via a combination of:

• take-away papers
• marked presentations in some courses

Entry requirements

A levels: aaa-abb.

Required subjects:

• A in an essay-based Arts and Humanities subject at A-Level
• At least five GCSEs at grade A*-C or 9-4 including English and Mathematics.

Where an applicant is taking the EPQ alongside A-levels, the EPQ will be taken into consideration and result in lower A-level grades being required. For students who are from backgrounds or personal circumstances that mean they are generally less likely to go to university, you may be eligible for an alternative lower offer. Follow the link to learn more about our  contextual offers.

We accept T-levels for admission to our undergraduate courses, with the following grades regarded as equivalent to our standard A-level requirements:

• AAA* – Distinction (A* on the core and distinction in the occupational specialism)
• AAA – Distinction
• BBB – Merit
• CCC – Pass (C or above on the core)
• DDD – Pass (D or E on the core)

Where a course specifies subject-specific requirements at A-level, T-level applicants are likely to be asked to offer this A-level alongside their T-level studies.

English language requirements

All teaching at Royal Holloway (apart from some language courses) is in English. You will therefore need to have good enough written and spoken English to cope with your studies right from the start of your course.

The scores we require

• IELTS: 7.0 overall. Writing 7.0. No other subscore lower than 5.5.
• Pearson Test of English: 69 overall. Writing 69. No other subscore lower than 51.
• Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English (ISE): ISE IV.
• Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) grade C.

Country-specific requirements

For more information about country-specific entry requirements for your country please visit here .

Undergraduate preparation programme

For international students who do not meet the direct entry requirements, for this undergraduate degree, the Royal Holloway International Study Centre offers an International Foundation Year programme designed to develop your academic and English language skills.

Upon successful completion, you can progress to this degree at Royal Holloway, University of London.

Taking a degree in English sets you up with great prospects for future employability. On the course itself we place a strong emphasis on your future employability, meaning that you will develop a variety of transferrable skills.

Although many of our students go on to further study in literature and other fields, skills such as research, presentation, teamwork, negotiation and communication will prepare you for a wide range of career opportunities.

Recent graduate have gone on to careers in:

• Accountancy and banking
• Media, PR and journalism
• Theatre and arts

We currently run a structured work placement scheme, placing students with organisations such as The Daily Telegraph, the Press Association, BBC Newsnight, publishers, literary agencies and media companies in London. By taking part in the scheme and you will boost your employability, build your CV, and develop real skills to help you choose and prepare for a career.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £9,250

EU and international students tuition fee per year**: £23,800

Other essential costs***: There are no single associated costs greater than £50 per item on this course.

How do I pay for it? Find out more about  funding options , including  loans , scholarships and bursaries . UK students who have already taken out a tuition fee loan for undergraduate study should  check their eligibility  for additional funding directly with the relevant awards body.

**The tuition fee for UK undergraduates is controlled by Government regulations. The fee for the academic year 2024/25 is £9,250 and is provided here as a guide. The fee for UK undergraduates starting in 2025/26 has not yet been set, but will be advertised here once confirmed.

**This figure is the fee for EU and international students starting a degree in the academic year 2024/25, and is included as a guide only. The fee for EU and international students starting a degree in 2025/26 has not yet been set, but will be advertised here once confirmed.

Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase tuition fees annually for overseas fee-paying students. Please be aware that tuition fees can rise during your degree. The upper limit of any such annual rise has not yet been set for courses starting in 2025/26 but will be advertised here once confirmed.  For further information see  fees and funding  and the  terms and conditions .

***These estimated costs relate to studying this specific degree at Royal Holloway during the 2024/25 academic year, and are included as a guide. General costs, such as accommodation, food, books and other learning materials and printing etc., have not been included.

English Undergraduate Admissions

Admissions office: +44 (0)1784 414944

Source: Complete University Guide, 2024 (English)

Source: Complete University Guide, 2024

Source: National Student Survey, 2023 (English and Creative Writing)

Explore Royal Holloway

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Get help paying for your studies at Royal Holloway through a range of scholarships and bursaries.

Clubs and societies

There are lots of exciting ways to get involved at Royal Holloway. Discover new interests and enjoy existing ones.

Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start.

Whether you need support with your health or practical advice on budgeting or finding part-time work, we can help.

Discover more about our academic departments and schools.

Research Excellence Framework

Find out why Royal Holloway is in the top 25% of UK universities for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Challenge-led research themes

Royal Holloway is a research intensive university and our academics collaborate across disciplines to achieve excellence.

Discover world-class research at Royal Holloway.

Discover more about who we are today, and our vision for the future.

Royal Holloway began as two pioneering colleges for the education of women in the 19th century, and their spirit lives on today.

We’ve played a role in thousands of careers, some of them particularly remarkable.

Find about our decision-making processes and the people who lead and manage Royal Holloway today.

Studying Here

• Find your course
• Fees and funding
• International students
• Undergraduate prospectus
• Postgraduate prospectus
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• Foundation Year
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Your future career

• Central London campus
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• Prospectuses and brochures
• For parents and supporters
• Schools and colleges

Sign up for more information

Student life, accommodation.

• Being a student

Chat with our students

Support and wellbeing.

• Visit Royal Holloway
• The local area
• Virtual experience

Research & Teaching

Departments and schools.

• COP28 Forum

Working with us

• The library

Our history

• Art Collections

Royal Holloway today

• Equality, Diversity and Inclusion
• Recruiting our students
• Past events
• Environmental Sustainability
• Facts and figures
• Collaborate with us
• Governance and strategy
• Online shops
• How to find us
• Financial information
• Local community
• Legal Advice Centre

In this section

Find the right course

Online undergraduate prospectus

• Student life

What our students say

Explore our virtual experience

• Research and teaching

Research institutes and centres

Our education priorities

Creative Writing

Site search

Thank you for considering an application.

Please click here to login and apply, or view your application.

Need help? Explore our How to Apply Page

Postgraduate applications

The closing date for applications to start this course in September 2024 is 31 July 2024. Further detail here .

Key information

Duration: 1 year full time or 2 years part time

Institution code: R72

Campus: Central London

UK fees * : £10,600

International/EU fees ** : £21,700

Creative Writing (MA)

This course allows you to develop your work as a writer to a professional level, going beyond the personal to write with an engaged sense of literary culture, its social role and contemporary practices. The MA is designed for students with an established writing practice who are intending to develop their creative writing beyond first-degree level. It is also designed for those students wishing to proceed to MPhil or PhD. This MA is taught at our central London location, in the heart of literary Bloomsbury, putting you within walking distance of publishing houses, bookshops, major UK libraries and all of the other cultural attractions of central London.

You will take one of four distinct pathways:

• New Prose Narratives
• Poetic Practice

While the pathways share a similar structure, they are taught separately so as to ensure you can work to a consistently high level. Please see the Course structure section below for more details on each of these.

The MA ranks among the top creative-writing courses in the country and is taught by leading writers whose work encompasses a wide range of approaches and styles.

• Sean Borodale’s Bee Journal was shortlisted for the TS Eliot Prize and Costa Book Award.
• Lavinia Greenlaw has received a Forward Prize for Poem of the Year, the Prix du Premier Roman, a Wellcome Engagement Fellowship and the Ted Hughes Award.
• Nikita Lalwani won the Desmond Elliot Award, and was shortlisted for the Costa Prize and longlisted for the Man Booker prize.
• Redell Olsen has been Judith E. Wilson Fellow in Poetry at Cambridge.
• Anna Whitwham’s novel Boxer Handsome was a New Statesman and Guardian Book of the Year.
• Eley Williams’s Attrib. and other stories won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Republic of Consciousness Prize.
• Matt Thorne has been longlisted for the Man Booker prize and is a winner of the Royal Society of Literature's Encore prize. 
• Dr James Wilkes published his first collection of poetry with Penned in the Margins and his interdisciplinary projects have included collaborations with the Wellcome Trust and BBC Radio 4. 

Our prizewinning, internationally successful alumni include the novelists Sarah Perry, Tahmima Anam, Jenni Fagan and Barney Norris; short-story writer and poet Eley Williams; and the poets Liz Berry, Kayo Chingonyi, Sam Riviere and Sophie Robinson. You can see the work of some of our recent alumni by visiting  www.bedfordsquarereview , our online showcase.

From time to time, we make changes to our courses to improve the student and learning experience. If we make a significant change to your chosen course, we’ll let you know as soon as possible.

Course structure

Core modules.

• Supplementary Discourses This weekly one-and-a-half hour seminar is taught within pathway groups and focuses on a broad range of critical texts by practising writers among others. It aims to provide you with the appropriate critical and theoretical skills for discussing your creative work. The course also aims to prepare you for you dissertation. You will acquire a range of critical concepts and vocabulary, a range of critical and theoretical approaches, and the necessary skills to undertake sophisticated reflection and discourse.
• Reading as a Writer This seminar is taught within pathway groups. Students propose texts (and non-textual works) for this syllabus, which is then devised by your tutor. You will make a short presentation on one of your chosen works during the term. The seminar encourages you to think about what it means to read as a writer, how the writer constructs the reader’s experience, and how this insight might inform your own literary composition. It considers different approaches to reading, and the relationship between practice and theory. You will learn how to demonstrate the ways in which reading contributes to your own developing practice as a writer.
• You will undertake a major extended fiction, non-fiction, poetry or poetic practice project under supervision. This will be either 15,000 words of prose, 24 pages of poetry or textual equivalent (to be agreed with the supervisor).
• The Creative Writing Project arises out of work developed in the workshop. In all cases, this should be new work not included in previous coursework submissions however much it has been revised. It can be a different part, or parts, of the same body of work, such as a novel. An important dimension of the MA is to give you the opportunity to begin serious work on a major project that would prepare you for the submission of this work to a publisher or the basis for an application for a practice-based research of a PhD as applicable to you. The Creative Writing Project is a crucial element in this preparation. It will be researched and written mainly in the summer term and during the summer vacation. You should draw on and develop the skills, and the critical and creative contexts, acquired in the first two terms. You should also seek to demonstrate independence, self-direction and originality in your approach to the project’s completion.
• Poetry does not have to have a collective theme or be a sequence, though these are acceptable.
• Poetic Practice - digital, bookworks and other formats of submission are acceptable but should be agreed in advance with the supervisor.

An important dimension of the MA is to give you the opportunity to begin serious work on a major research project that relates to your practice. This could prepare you for an application for the practice-based PhD.

The Extended Essay (Creative Writing) is a crucial element in this preparation. It will be researched and written mainly in the summer term and during the summer vacation. The principle aim of the Extended Essay (Creative Writing) is to enable you to demonstrate your ability to reflect critically and theoretically, and to locate your practice in relation to contemporary writing practices. You should draw on and develop skills acquired in the first two terms. The subject of the extended essay is to be agreed with the supervisor.

This module will describe the key principles of academic integrity, focusing on university assignments. Plagiarism, collusion and commissioning will be described as activities that undermine academic integrity, and the possible consequences of engaging in such activities will be described. Activities, with feedback, will provide you with opportunities to reflect and develop your understanding of academic integrity principles.

You will choose one of the following pathways:

You will learn how to structure and edit your prose to a publishable standard while also developing an expert sense of how best to draw on the personal, the actual and the imagination. We have no house style, and encourage both experiment and rigour. In developing your analytical and editorial skills, you will sharpen your self-criticism.

The content of the workshops will be dictated by the presentations of work in progress by the members of the group, and by the critical dialogue that develops from these presentations. Your tutor will draw up a schedule for this and work will be circulated in advance. You will read and annotate this work and come to class ready to discuss it. Reading of literary exempla and extracts will also feed into workshop discussions. Your tutor may set exercises or additional advance reading, and you will receive intensive feedback supported by individual tutorials.

This pathway is for writers of all kinds of poetry, who are focused on publication on the page. You will learn how to locate and refine your personal poetics, and how to develop a poem to its fullest potential. You will be taught how to revise and edit a poem, how to sustain a writing practice, and how to locate your poetry within a broader literary context.

The workshop welcomes all styles and approaches to poetry focused on publication on the page. The content of the workshops will be dictated by the presentations of work in progress by the members of the group, and by the critical dialogue that develops from these presentations. Your tutor will draw up a schedule for this and work will be circulated in advance. You will read and annotate this work and come to class ready to discuss it. Reading of literary exempla and extracts will also feed into workshop discussions. Your tutor may set exercises or additional advance reading, and you will receive intensive feedback supported by individual tutorials.

This pathway foregrounds the writing in an expanded field of contemporary poetic practice. It offers a consideration of contemporary trends in innovative and experimental poetry: redefinitions of lyric writing, bookworks, visual poetics, performance, sound, conceptual writing, digital poetics and site-specific work.

You will develop, and reflect on, your own practice in the context of an understanding of contemporary experimental practice in poetry from the UK and North America, and consider how contemporary poetry and poetics intersect with such fields as conceptual art writing, sound art, live art, digital poetics, book arts, installed texts and writing in relation to site.

You will explore the broad range of possibilities that literary non-fiction has to offer from memoir to manifesto, from the essay to the hybrid form. You can experiment with the interface between fiction and memoir, and discover how to write out of the self without a form in mind. You will be taught how to activate and deploy your research. You will learn how to draw on these to develop original work of your own to publishable standard.

The workshop will include an exploration of the full range of approaches that non-fiction has to offer. We will encourage you to explore them all, and to draw freely on them in your own work, taking an interdisciplinary approach. We will also teach you how to use the tools and devices of fiction and poetry in the writing of non-fiction. The workshop is also where you present work in progress, and you will receive intensive feedback supported by individual tutorials.

In the autumn term, you will have the opportunity to explore a range of literary non- fiction practices. Working with exempla, which will be read in advance and discussed in class, you will undertake writing exercises, imitation and invention. In the spring term, you will be presenting and critiquing your own creative work-in-progress while continuing to discuss other texts that cast light on the issues that arise.

Optional Modules

• All modules are core

Teaching & assessment

You will work in small groups and with extensive individual attention. We are looking for people who will flourish from working intensively within a rigorous and experimental but supportive environment.  In addition to workshops, you will take modules in Supplementary Discourses and Reading as a Writer, seminars designed to enhance your understanding of your own practice as well as the broader literary context in which you will be situating your work.

You will submit creative and critical coursework, and will undertake a final practical project and dissertation on practice.

In the summer term, you will receive individual supervision and will be offered a programme of events and masterclasses introducing you to leading writers, editors and agents who can advise on next steps. Enhancing the experience, there are regular readings and talks given by students, staff and visiting writers.

Creative coursework (Full-time students and first-year part-time students)

The first portfolio of fiction or non-fiction or poetry (5,000 words prose, 12 pp poetry or equivalent agreed with your tutor) will be submitted for feedback at the beginning of the Spring Term. This is a formative submission which means that it is not formally graded. You will receive feedback and an indicative grade. Under the guidance of your tutor, you then revise this work and resubmit it at the beginning of the Summer Term. It is then a summative submission and is formally assessed.

The second portfolio (identical requirements) will be submitted for formal assessment, along with a revised first portfolio, at the beginning of the Summer Term.

Essays (Full-time students and second-year part-time students)

The essay for Supplementary Discourses will be submitted for feedback at the beginning of the Spring Term. This submission is summative and is formally assessed.

The essay for Reading as a Writer will be submitted for summative assessment at the beginning of the of Summer Term.

Creative Writing Project and Dissertation on Practice (Full-time students and second-year part-time students)

Students receive individual supervisions in the summer term towards the completion of these two submissions, which are made in September.

Entry requirements

UK or equivalent degree in single or combined honours English.

Applicant will be required to provide a writing sample, prose of up to 5,000 words or at least 12 pages of poetry reflecting their chosen pathway: Fiction, New Prose Narratives, Poetry, Poetic Practice.  

Additionally, a sample of critical writing of up to 1,000 words showing your ability to critically engage with a text. 

International & EU requirements

English language requirements.

• IELTS: 7.0 overall. Writing 7.0. No other subscore lower than 5.5.
• Pearson Test of English: 69 overall. Writing 69. No other subscore lower than 51.
• Trinity College London Integrated Skills in English (ISE): ISE IV.
• Cambridge English: Advanced (CAE) grade C.
• TOEFL iBT: 97 overall, with Reading 18 Listening 17 Speaking 20 Writing 26.
• Duolingo: 130 overall, 135 in Literacy, 135 in Production and no sub-score below 100.

A significant number of our Creative Writing students have become published authors or found work in publishing, the media and agencies.

We have an impressive record for placing graduates in academic jobs.

This course will give you a distinctive, creative edge in careers such as publishing, teaching, writing and journalism, administration and marketing.

Fees, funding & scholarships

Home (UK) students tuition fee per year*: £10,600

EU and international students tuition fee per year**: £21,700

Other essential costs***: There are no single associated costs greater than £50 per item on this course.

How do I pay for it? Find out more about  funding options,  including loans, grants,  scholarships  and bursaries.

* and ** These tuition fees apply to students enrolled on a full-time basis in the academic year 2024/25. Students studying on the standard part-time course structure over two years are charged 50% of the full-time applicable fee for each study year.

Royal Holloway reserves the right to increase all postgraduate tuition fees annually, based on the UK’s Retail Price Index (RPI). Please therefore be aware that tuition fees can rise during your degree (if longer than one year’s duration), and that this also means that the overall cost of studying the course part-time will be slightly higher than studying it full-time in one year. For further information, please see our  terms and conditions .

** This figure is the fee for EU and international students starting a degree in the academic year 2024/25.  Find out more  

*** These estimated costs relate to studying this particular degree at Royal Holloway during the 2024/25 academic year, and are included as a guide. Costs, such as accommodation, food, books and other learning materials and printing, have not been included.

School of Humanities

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+44 (0)1784 276882

Source: Times and Sunday Times Good University Guide 2023

Source: Complete University Guide 2023

Explore Royal Holloway

Scholarships

Get help paying for your studies at Royal Holloway through a range of scholarships and bursaries.

Clubs and societies

There are lots of exciting ways to get involved at Royal Holloway. Discover new interests and enjoy existing ones.

Heading to university is exciting. Finding the right place to live will get you off to a good start.

Whether you need support with your health or practical advice on budgeting or finding part-time work, we can help.

Discover more about our academic departments and schools.

Research Excellence Framework

Find out why Royal Holloway is in the top 25% of UK universities for research rated ‘world-leading’ or ‘internationally excellent’.

Challenge-led research themes

Royal Holloway is a research intensive university and our academics collaborate across disciplines to achieve excellence.

Discover world-class research at Royal Holloway.

Discover more about who we are today, and our vision for the future.

Royal Holloway began as two pioneering colleges for the education of women in the 19th century, and their spirit lives on today.

We’ve played a role in thousands of careers, some of them particularly remarkable.

Find about our decision-making processes and the people who lead and manage Royal Holloway today.