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Write your personal statement

Your personal statement is an opportunity to tell us about yourself, and to outline why you're a compelling candidate for a research degree with us.

In your statement, you should demonstrate your enthusiasm for your research topic and highlight the skills you've gained from your academic studies and your work or life experience.

• Your reasons for choosing your topic of research
• The aspects of your topic of research that interest you most
• Any skills and abilities gained from work experience, placement or voluntary work, particularly if it's relevant to your subject
• How your choice of research fits in with your future career plans
• Why you would like to study in the UK (for EU/International students)
• If you aren't currently in full-time education, please provide details of your current or previous employment

To get a good idea of your research process and how you express yourself, all research proposals should include an AI Acknowledgement Statement. This should be included as an appendix to your proposal (see How to write a research proposal that stands out). The purpose of this is to explain how you have used AI tools in the production of the document and its contents. All use of AI must be acknowledged to ensure the assessors can differentiate between your original work and that which has been created by AI. If AI has not been used, the acknowledgement statement should make that clear.

Please note that poor use of or over-reliance on AI tools may result in a low-quality application that is unlikely to succeed (see Appropriate use of AI tools below). You may also be aware that AI can reflect biases inherent in its training data and can ‘hallucinate’, meaning it may fill gaps in its data with information that is incorrect.

The purpose of the admissions process is to assess your knowledge, experience and academic ability through the written application and interview, and using AI can interfere with this process. If it is unclear whether or not you have used AI, assessors may exercise caution and reject the proposal.

Appropriate use of AI tools to support the preparation of research proposals is permitted, but you should adhere to the following principles:

• What counts as appropriate use of AI tools may differ depending on the academic discipline and nature of the research. You are advised to assess the appropriateness of AI use in consultation with a potential supervisor before submitting your formal application;
• AI may be an integral part of the proposed research design or the focus of the research, but this should not be confused with the use of AI to write parts of a proposal or thesis;
• You should ensure submitted work is genuinely yours, not just copied or edited from AI-generated content (including writing, images, video, audio and code);
• Provide a Digital Object Identifier (DOI) for all digital sources such as articles and ebooks - it is your responsibility to ensure these are functioning before you submit work;
• Assessors will want to see that you have maintained academic integrity by engaging with correctly referenced source material, thinking critically, and expressing ideas in your own voice;
• You should not use AI to reduce word count as it may not retain your intended meaning or emphases;
• AI tools (e.g. Grammarly) may be used to provide suggestions for corrections or improvements to the spelling, grammar or structure of written work, but you must make all such changes.