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Course Info

“We must continually ask questions of the past, even the most recent past, because it holds the key to the future. History must be handled carefully of course, for it is trained experts that must provide the intellectual underpinning for decisions taken by politicians and the senior leaders of the Armed Forces. We need more research and Defence must work ever more closely with academics if we are to make sense of our complex world and so provide practical solutions to knotty problems. We need to know what to change, how to change, when to change and why. We also need to know what not to change. These are not questions for the ill-informed.

Field Marshal The Lord Bramall, former Chief of the Defence Staff, in an interview with PhD programme director, Professor Lloyd Clark, in April 2018.

The University of Buckingham’s PhD in Modern War Studies and Contemporary Military History seeks to provide the trained minds to which Field Marshal the Lord Bramall was referring, and our programme flourishes with doctoral students currently drawn from four continents and with graduates making their mark around the world. In a world of uncertainty and rapid change, there has never been a more important time to understand why war and how wars are fought, and their influence on politics, economics, society and culture.

The PhD programme is based in London, but its students can be located wherever their research demands and there is a choice full time or part time study. For those based in the UK, full use can be made of well-established relationships with some of the most important research facilities and institutions in the country including:

The Imperial War Museum

The RAF Museum

The National Army Museum

The Royal Navy Museum

The National Archives

The Royal United Services Institute

Chatham House

International Institute for Strategic Studies

The British Commission for Military History

The Centre for Army Leadership

Centre for Historical Analysis and Conflict Research.