Study of Religions

The admission procedure to doctoral study programmes at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University is two-round. In the first round, the documents submitted in advance are assessed. The second round takes the form of an oral interview. Only those applicants who succeed in the first round are invited to the second round.

Application dates: January 1 – April 30

Deadline for the submission of additional materials: April 30

Planned research focus of dissertations:

Cognitive Religious Studies, Digital Research on Religion, General Religious Studies, Historical Religious Studies, Current Religious Situation in Central Europe, Topics of Current Grants, etc.

Additional materials (1st round):

• CV (including a list of publications);
• dissertation project proposal (using the form).

  Please send the additional materials in DOCX or PDF format to the department (religion@phil.muni.cz). All documents are to be inserted to the e-application ("Documents section") at the same time, deadline April 30. Applicants are requested to include their full name and application number in all attached documents.

  The admission exam (2nd round) is based on the candidate’s presentation of the dissertation project proposal, followed by a discussion.

  Note: The M.A. diploma (official copy; for education obtained outside of the Czech Republic also its nostrification) is required upon inscription in studies. It is not required for the admission exam.

1st round: success limits 60 points (out of 100).

2nd round: success limits 80 points (out of 100).

Institutional Cooperation

The study programme is delivered in cooperation between the Department for the Study of Religions at the Faculty of Arts, Masaryk University; the Department of Philosophy and Religious Studies at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University; and the Department of Sociology, Andragogy and Cultural Anthropology at the Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc. This cooperation consists primarily of the following areas:

identical programme description and graduate profile;

substantial overlap in the composition of the Programme Board;

a regular joint doctoral seminar for students from all participating universities (conducted online);

an annual joint doctoral conference;

shared teaching of transferable skills (e.g., presentation skills, academic writing, grant application preparation);

shared guest lectures by external experts.

Programme Structure and Requirements

The backbone of the programme is a continuous doctoral seminar jointly organised by all three universities, where doctoral students from different years of study meet regularly and present the results of their work achieved in cooperation with their supervisors, as well as in partial seminars linked to specific framework study requirements. During the course of their studies, doctoral students finalize their dissertation research project proposal, submit an annotated literature review and a dissertation outline, improve their academic writing skills, design a publication project related to their dissertation research, become acquainted with the peer-review process and other practical and ethical aspects of scholarly publishing, deepen their knowledge of theory and methodology, present the theoretical and methodological foundations of their dissertation, work systematically on the dissertation itself, and gain orientation in the postdoctoral phase of an academic career. Furthermore, they draft at least one grant application and at least one study in English addressing one of the central topics of the dissertation. They develop their presentation skills and participate in at least two international conferences. They also complete further theoretical, methodological, fact-oriented, or language courses corresponding to their scholarly specialisation and dissertation project.

Applicant profile

The doctoral programme in the study of religions is intended for graduates of a Master’s degree programmes in the study of religions or in related disciplines, particularly sociology, anthropology, history, or psychology, who wish to further develop their research skills under the guidance of a supervisor and pursue an academic career.

Upon successful completion of the programme, the graduate is able to:

• understand complex theoretical and empirical texts in the humanities and the social sciences;
• connect the general/theoretical and empirical/practical aspects of research in the humanities and social sciences;
• use selected methods of data collection and data analysis in the humanities and social sciences on an advanced level;
• design and conduct complex, systematic, original, methodologically sound, and theoretically relevant research in the study of religions;
• persuasively clarify the theoretical foundations of their research;
• place the results of their research in the context of the international state of research on the topic;
• understand the practical and ethical aspects of research and academic publishing;
• write high-quality and relevant academic texts meeting international standards;
• communicate and popularize the acquired knowledge and experience;
• apply the acquired knowledge, experience and organizational skills in practice.

Graduates are qualified for positions in teaching and research in the study of religions and related fields; in non-governmental organizations focusing on minorities or intercultural translation; in state administration where the position requires knowledge of different cultures, religions, and ethnic groups and decision-making based on facts; in education; in the media; and in the translation of literature in the humanities and social sciences. They are also able to prepare grant applications in the public and private sectors.

In academia, graduates can offer outstanding and state-of-the-art orientation in the contemporary study of religions with respect to major recent international developments in theory and methodology; interdisciplinary thinking; skills relating to theoretically founded and empirically precise research; and experience in research, as well as teaching, publishing, and preparing grant applications and projects.

Employers outside academia will benefit from graduates’ analytical skills, their ability to work on demanding and long-term projects, their independent and critical thinking, and their skills in the preparation of well-founded materials for decision-making.

The curriculum does not include any obligatory third-party practical training, except in cases where this obligation is part of the Individual Study Plan. The whole study is oriented towards the practical aspects of the research process.

During their studies, doctoral students work on their dissertation. The dissertation must contain original and significant research results. It can take the form of either a monograph or a collection of thematically related works that have been published or accepted for publication.

In the case of a monograph, the dissertation is a comprehensive study with a minimum length of 216,000 characters (120 standard pages).

In the case of a collection of works, there is no prescribed length, but the collection must contain either at least three publications where the doctoral student is the lead author, or at least two publications where the student is the lead author and a further two where they serve as a co-author. The publications must be published or accepted for publication in journals indexed in the Scopus or Web of Science databases, with the exception of one, which may be an article in a journal not included in these databases, a book chapter, or a paper in a conference proceedings (where indexing is not required). The collection must be provided with: (1) a preface containing a detailed explanation of the candidate’s authorial contribution and the bibliographic data of the individual entries; (2) a comprehensive introduction to the topic; (3) a concluding commentary.

The mandatory components of the dissertation include a title page containing the name of the university, faculty, and department, the title of the work, the name of the author, the name of the supervisor, and the place and year of completion. Furthermore, the work must include an author’s declaration of originality (including a description of the use of artificial intelligence tools), a table of contents, a bibliography, and a continuous apparatus of footnotes.