Overview
Explore international relations in theory and practice: our PhD programme will support you in discovering and creating new knowledge about global politics and international relations.
Find out more about studying during COVID-19 in the Entry requirements section, below.
Full description
Our PhD research programme will allow you to explore your own interests in international relations and international politics, supported by the expertise of our staff.
You'll be allocated two supervisors, with additional staff members available if necessary. Our supervisors are experienced in most areas of international relations, with particular strengths in international political theory, security studies, military studies, development, political philosophy, human rights and (counter) terrorism studies. The International Relations degree also links in closely with Criminology at Anglia Ruskin, so that you can benefit from a rich and broad environment for specialised research.
We'll provide you with a rich and stimulating research environment with strong links to research networks in Anglia Ruskin and the wider community, including the University of Cambridge's Centre for Research into Arts, Social Sciences, and Humanities (CRASSH), and links to Citizens Advice Bureau, the National Probation Service, the Crown Court and Crown Prosecution Service, as well as Cambridgeshire Police. We host the Labour History Research Unit (LHRU), which covers aspects of national and international political history, and contribute to many of our Faculty's other research groups, including the Policing Institute for the Eastern Region (PIER) and the StoryLab Research Institute.
We also host and take part in many research events, including Faculty and departmental research seminars and symposia, which will allow you to engage and present your research in a safe and supportive setting. These events, along with our online environment, will help you connect with other research students from a range of disciplines.
All your subject-specific studies will be enhanced and supported by our University-wide training sessions, where you'll gain important research expertise in areas like ethics, presentations, intellectual property and digital scholarship.
Supervision and Support
Our permanent supervisory staff members are recognised as international experts in their fields, and have produced influential books, journal articles and edited collections, and won funding for a number of prestigious research projects. Our International Relations expertise includes:
Dr Solava Ibrahim: Dynamics of political change and state-society relations in the Middle East; human development and capability approach; poverty reduction; gender and women groups; grassroots-led development.
Carina O'Reilly: European security and organised crime, and local policing and local governance. Freelance defence and security analyst, formerly editor and analyst at Jane's, global country risk analyst for Cambridge International Research on Current Affairs.
Dr Anna Markovska: transitional countries; serious crime; corruption; drug abuse.
Colleen Moore: the treatment of victims in the criminal justice system; violence, sexual violence and exploitation; 'Justice'; identities and judgement; conflict resolution; terrorism, cultures of war.
Dr Samantha Lundrigan: criminological profiling systems; profiling serial offenders, criminological research methods.
Dr Luke Cooper: Nationalism and national identity; non-eurocentric international history; theory of uneven and combined development
Professor Bronwen Walter: Irish diaspora studies
Dr Jon Davis: Russian history; the Cold War.
Dr Richard Carr: British politics and government.
Your department and faculty
At the School of Humanities and Social Sciences, we believe in thinking critically about the past, present and future to challenge perceptions and better understand communities and people.
With expertise from gender issues to literary analysis to exploring how the past has shaped our modern world, all our staff members are active researchers. This is reflected in our teaching, allowing us to support our students with the latest theories and practices, as well as essential employability advice.

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