Doctoral Spotlight: Celebrating Research Degrees at the RCA

The Royal College of Art’s Research Degrees programme is a unique environment where practice, theory and innovation converge. Doctoral students and graduates are not only advancing knowledge but also shaping industries, influencing public discourse and winning international recognition. This season’s highlights reveal the extraordinary breadth of RCA research — from prize-winning publications and sustainable materials to political interventions and global collaborations.

Awards and recognition

Our graduates continue to be recognised on international stages, with awards that highlight both the intellectual rigour and cultural resonance of their practice.

• Dr Alex Donnelly (School of Arts and Humanities) has won Norway’s Most Beautiful Book of 2025 for Poetic Investigations, his PhD project-turned-publication. Now on display at the National Library of Norway, the book explores the logical and mathematical foundations of poetry as a means of articulating contemporary experiences of warfare.
• Redefining what recognition looks like for a Blind artist, Dr David Johnson (School of Arts & Humanities) has been awarded the 2025 Adam Reynolds Award. His new commissions will include Beyond the Visual at the Henry Moore Institute and a podcast series unpacking blindness, beauty and imagination — destabilising cultural assumptions about vision itself.

Inventions and social impact

Research at the RCA is not confined to the studio; it transforms industries and creates tangible social impact.

• With Piñatex™, Dr Carmen Hijosa (School of Design) has pioneered a sustainable leather alternative made from pineapple leaf fibre, now adopted by brands such as Nike. By repurposing agricultural waste, her company Ananas Anam not only reduces fashion’s environmental footprint but also generates new livelihoods for farming communities worldwide.

Impact and public engagement

RCA doctoral researchers are making themselves heard in the most public of arenas — from Parliament to international festivals.

• Invited by the Speaker of the House of Commons, Osman Yousefzada (School of Arts & Humanities) delivered a speech to MPs in which he celebrated migrant histories, invoked his own family’s story and urged empathy and solidarity as guiding values for Britain’s future.
  
• At the Science Museum, Varvara Keidan Shavrova (School of Arts and Humanities) joined the panel Textiles and Spaceflight, bringing attention to women’s overlooked role in aerospace industries. Her new artwork The Blade was shown alongside the discussion.
  
• Expanding on the acclaimed Spaces of Knowledge symposium, PhD graduate Marisa Ferreira, Research Tutor, Professor Jaspar Joseph Lester and current doctoral researcher Carmen Mariscal will take part in SPACEX (Coventry Biennial, November 2025), exploring walking as a method for fostering social justice and policy change.

• Artist and Research Tutor postgraduate researcher Jessica Potter (School of Arts and Humanities) has been working with schools, farmers and community groups in the Kent Downs as part of her Language and Landscape Impact Fellowship, running experimental photographic workshops tied to biodiversity.
• Later this autumn, Marisa Musing (School of Architecture) will present her PhD research at New Ways of Seeing in Paris, discussing how cyberfeminist perspectives might reshape our cultural histories of technology.
• Damien Roach (School of Arts and Humanities) introduced His Majesty The King to his work Grounding at SXSW London. The installation uses AI and quantum physics to generate ever-changing landscapes, part of his wider exploration of planetary perspectives beyond the human eye.

Research in action

Collaboration, experimentation and material exploration remain at the core of RCA doctoral research.

• Under the Sites and Situations Research Cluster, researchers including Daniel Durnin, Alice Harry, Xiangyin Gu, Anju Kasturiraj and Osman Yousefzada joined colleagues at the University of the Arts Budapest for a cross-border collaboration. The project will culminate in The Art of Activism, an exhibition opening at the City Gallery of Prague in 2026.
• Mi (Misha) Lin (School of Design) has gained international attention for Generative Unravelling, a multisensory exploration of Miao Piling embroidery. Exhibited at events from IEEE ICME AIART Gallery in France to London Craft Week, the project has also been featured in global media and shortlisted for the V&A × Design Society Design Values Award.
• Through the fragile yet resilient medium of papier-mâché, Folashade Elizabeth Olukoya (School of Arts and Humanities) is investigating trauma and healing. Her research captures the moment paper fibres re-form after disintegration, a metaphor for women’s resilience and the quiet strength found in survival.
• The School of Communication has launched Issue 3 of Itinerant Space, its experimental online journal. Centred on the theme of “anticipatory practice,” the issue showcases work by Nick Bell, Yunqi Peng, Kam Rehal, Meghan Stemp, Ellen Walker, Suwen Wang, Bryan Yueshen Wu and Jingjie Zhang, under the editorial direction of Professor Teal Triggs.