Postgraduate study

As a postgraduate student at the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, you will become part of a vibrant intellectual community. 

All our postgraduate students work under the supervision of Faculty staff, and alongside post-doctoral researchers and affiliated researchers. 

You will be encouraged to take part in our busy programme of lectures, seminars and talks. A rich programme of cultural events is also offered by other departments across the University and affiliated research institutions. These make Cambridge a uniquely stimulating intellectual environment for its postgraduate students.

We welcome applications from highly motivated postgraduates who are interested in Middle Eastern or East Asian Studies.

Learn more about our programmes:

We also offer an Advanced Diploma in Hebrew Studies to prepare students to either continue to an MPhil degree or move into a career in specialist Hebrew language teaching.

Applying

MPhil and PhD applications for 2026/27 are now open. The application deadline is 14 May 2026. Funding applications are closed.

Find out more about funding your postgraduate studies.

Before you apply, we encourage you to contact us to discuss your interests with a potential supervisor.

Contact a prospective supervisor

Prospective applicants for all postgraduate options are expected to contact potential supervisors by email before making a formal application. 

Send a prospective supervisor:

  • a short academic CV
  • your draft research proposal

The purpose of this initial contact is to discuss research proposals, enquire about supervisor capacity and willingness to supervise, and determine if there is a good fit between your interests and theirs. 

When contacting a supervisor, it is recommended that you consider their research profile when writing to them. Find out more from our People pages.  

Guidance for writing your proposal

In your draft research proposal, consider the following questions.

  • What is already known about this topic? What are the key works and who are the prominent scholars in the field?
  • What are the issues involving this topic which generate discussion and disagreement and warrant further investigation? Why are those issues important?
  • Which of these issues do you propose to investigate and why? And what impact do you expect your final work to have on the field?
  • What methodology will you use to answer this question?
  • To what extent will your research involve previously unexamined primary sources, ‘new’ analyses of existing source materials or some combination of both?
  • To what extent are you confident that these sources include relevant, usable material?
  • What potential problems do you anticipate in the research, and how do you plan to overcome these?

This list is partially based on guidelines produced by IMES, University of Edinburgh, from chapter 3 of Writing the Successful Thesis: Entering the Conversation, by Irene L.Clark, Prentice Hall, PTR, 2006.

Contact us

For general queries about our postgraduate degree courses, contact our graduate administrator: