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Royal College of Art

Welcome to the world’s only postgraduate art and design school, located right in the heart of London. Founded in 1837, the Royal College of Art’s staff, students and alumni comprise an internationally renowned community of artists, designers and academics who play a significant role in the shaping of modern culture.
 
The College’s position as the leading specialist art and design institution in the UK was recently confirmed by the 2008 Research Assessment Exercise Results. An outstanding 65% of the RCA’s research output was deemed to be world-leading or internationally excellent in terms of originality, significance and rigour.
 
Playing a key role in the development of the research of art and design, both nationally and internationally, the College is unusual in its particular juxtaposition of art in a design environment and design in an art environment. Its status as a centre of excellence in art and design research is further enhanced by its advancement of knowledge in the principles of art and design in their specific relation to industrial and commercial processes.
 
The RCA’s Royal Charter, granted in 1967, specifies that the objects of the College are "to advance learning, knowledge and professional competence particularly in the field of fine arts, in the principles and practice of art and design in their relation to industrial and commercial processes and social developments and other subjects relating thereto through teaching, research and collaboration with industry and commerce".

Fast Facts

• The average age of the College’s students, studying at Master’s and Doctoral levels, is twenty-six. Some come to the Royal College of Art directly from their undergraduate courses, others later in their careers as artists and designers.
• The current enrolment tally measures roughly 900 students, all taking fine art, applied art, design, communications or humanities courses. In the past five years, over 38% of students have come from outside the UK with 12% coming from outside the European Union, representing 46 countries in total.
• The College has over 100 full-time academic staff, with hundreds of distinguished visiting lecturers and professors. The majority of staff, whether Heads of Department, Tutors or Technicians, continue their own practice in conjunction with their work at the College.
• The facilities and technical equipment on offer at the College are amongst the best of their kind in the world. RapidformRCA provides on-site access to sophisticated rapid prototyping and laser-scanning. At the same time, traditional workshop facilities are maintained in all areas of the College.
• The College has an invaluable resource of over 1,000 works: the tradition of adding staff and graduating students' paintings, drawings and prints to the Collection makes it a vibrant and growing reflection of key moments in the development of twentieth- and twenty-first -century British Art.
• The College’s special collections include the Colour Reference Library, a collection of books, pamphlets and charts representing every aspect of the subject of colour. The second largest collection of its kind in the world, it houses over 3,000 volumes in total.

Life in London

One of the world’s great cultural capitals, London naturally enough is also home to some of the world’s greatest cultural institutions including the National Gallery, the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum (one of the RCA’s key institutional partners.) Indeed London has over 200 museums, twice as many as Paris or New York, and most of them are free to visit. The city also has a multitude of incredible galleries, theatres, opera houses and concert halls. It’s a vibrant, diverse, multicultural city, a hugely exciting place to live, study and of course, socialise. Attractions include Buckingham Palace, the Tower of London, the London Eye, Tate Modern, Madame Tussauds, the Natural History Museum and the Science Museum (the latter two are also close neighbours and partners of the College). The weather, whilst often a topic of conversation (this being Britain), is actually quite mild. Winters are not over-cold, summers not over-hot. It does however rain every now and then.