Aberystwyth is a university with a welcoming culture, and a thriving, vibrant research community. We’ve been named Welsh University of the Year 2020, have produced ground-breaking research, and we’re situated on the beautiful West Coast of Wales, so you’ll be studying in a location like no other Our Law School was founded in 1901, and we have an extensive, distinctive and varied experience of legal and criminological education and academic work.The Department of Law and Criminology offers a Masters of Philosophy (MPhil) in Criminology. An MPhil is like a smaller version of a PhD (although no less challenging). It is an advanced research-based postgraduate qualification, where you research and write a 60,000 word thesis over 2 years. Similarly to a PhD, you’ll have the opportunity to pursue an area of interest under the guidance of their supervisor, and you’ll still undertake the viva voce exam (where you verbally defend your thesis) but an MPhil involves conducting less in-depth analysis than a PhD does. The academic standard expected is the same, however. You still conduct an original piece of research, and develop skills which are transferable within and outside of academia.