Our Department of Politics is a world-renowned centre of original, influential research. In the 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), Politics at Birkbeck was ranked 17th in the UK. The Department organises a lively programme of seminars and conferences and is home to affiliated research centres, such as the Centre for the Study of British Politics and Public Life, which run seminars, conferences and other events where some of the world's best scholars present their latest research. Our academic staff are international authorities in their respective fields, publishing and delivering stimulating teaching in a wide range of political topics including civil society and the state, public policy, development, gender, international security and terrorism, and social and political theory, among others. Our location in central London puts us at the heart of the UK’s political life and at the centre of academic London. You can walk down to Parliament and Whitehall, where Parliament and the UK’s most influential and important think-tanks and centres of political research and analysis are located, while Bloomsbury contains some of the world’s most famous libraries and centres of research. Our departmental building was once a key location for members of the Bloomsbury Group, so you could be studying in rooms that have hosted distinguished visitors, including T. S. Eliot, George Bernard Shaw and Maynard Keynes.

To be considered for direct entry to a Master's degree at Birkbeck, you will normally be required to have successfully completed a Bakalavr/Specialist Diploma from a recognised university with a minimum final grade of 3.5 for programmes requiring a UK 2:2