Entry requirements

Start date - 2027/2028
The programme attracts individuals from a notably wide range of disciplines who wish to explore their fields through animation, including, for example, film, architecture, graphic design, literature, communication arts, performance, art history, computing, illustration, pure and applied sciences and maths or fine art, or a combination of these.
Candidates are selected entirely on merit and applications are welcomed from all over the world. The selection process considers creativity, imagination and innovation as demonstrated in your application and portfolio, your technical animation skills and your potential to benefit from the programme and to achieve high MA standards overall.

Visit the RCA website for application dates, details and full entry requirements.

Our Graduate Diploma Art & Design (pre-master's conversion) course can provide a route to progress to this programme.

Months of entry

September

Course content

Study at the World's number one ranked art and design university for eight consecutive years (2015-2022). Develop your creative expertise to influence how audiences see and understand the social, political and cultural animated worlds and experiences you create.

The MA Animation at the RCA has been ranked number one animation school in the UK, third in Europe and fourth globally in the latest Animation Career Review Rankings. This programme fosters an ethos and environment of experimentation and creativity built on a foundation of social and cultural interrogation and contextual and critical thinking. We are committed to a critical potency of animation that can challenge and offer alternatives to industry's dominant digital realism and inherent ideologies. We offer you a singular approach to a community of learning and teaching for developing your creativity and skills to negotiate rapid cultural and technological change. Within a continuum of mimetic narrative and playful abstraction, you will find your own meaningful fit or stance as an artist within an array of techniques, concepts and canons to position you to contribute to a greater collective intellectual and creative capital.

You will be challenged and encouraged to engage in innovative practice-oriented research sensitive to understanding and articulation of the nuances of cultures, ethics, diversity, identities, traditions, environments and futures. Our students engage in interdisciplinary contexts of drama, literature, philosophy, fine and applied arts, film and media theory, art history, STEM disciplines and architecture. You will deepen your understanding of animation to develop your own critical approach to your practice, and challenge yourself intellectually with new ideas to broaden and influence social, political and cultural perspectives through creative engagement. MA Animation is pedagogically conceived and strategically positioned to foster our students’ aspirations and creative transformations as ethically minded thinkers and professionally astute creative artists, filmmakers and problem solvers. You will join a community engaged in dialogues with and new perspectives on the persuasive potential of animation in the digital humanities and STEAM disciplines.

Open Days

Join an RCA online or on-campus open day to find out more about this programme - RCA Open Days.
AcrossRCA During the first two terms, you participate in the AcrossRCA college-wide unit, collaborating with students from other programmes on a self-initiated themed project that addresses cultural, social, environmental or economic issues.

Core Skills The Core Skills unit supports the development of academic and professional skills for your personal projects and beyond in your professional practice and career. It focuses on key skills for your discipline through three themes: Making Meaning (focusing on critical thinking and research), Making Together (focusing on collaboration and inclusive practice), and Making Public (focusing on communication, engagement and leadership).

Fees and funding

Visit the RCA website to find out more about scholarships and funding opportunities.

Qualification, course duration and attendance options

  • MA
    full time
    12 months
    • Campus-based learningis available for this qualification

Course contact details

Name
RCA Student Recruitment
Email
recruitment@rca.ac.uk