Imperial College London is dedicated to the wellbeing of its doctoral students, which includes supporting the development of their ability to communicate their research effectively and to manage the writing-up process independently. The purpose of the Imperial College London Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement is to quickly identify, and subsequently support, students whose academic writing competence needs to be further developed so that they can successfully complete their PhD on time.

After fulfilling the English language entry requirement for admission, all doctoral students must fulfil the Imperial College London Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement. This is done through taking Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement Assessment 1. Depending on the result of this initial assessment, students may also need to have a progress check (Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement Assessment 2), as part of the Early Stage Assessment (ESA) carried out by their department.

Yes, all Imperial doctoral students are required to fulfil the Imperial College London Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement. 

All students meeting the exemption criteria will receive formal email confirmation of their status. Students are exempt if they:

• have a valid* 3-year (minimum) undergraduate degree studied in full within a majority English speaking country 
• or they have a valid*† IELTS 8.0/TOEFL 110 overall (minimum) at the time of fully registering on the doctoral programme
• or they are a national of a majority English speaking country

*Please note that the above are only valid if awarded within the two years prior to the doctoral programme registration date. †Other English proficiency tests as equivalents are considered on a case by case basis. 

Please note that the award of a master's degree is not an exemption criterion. 

Please note that if you are doing a '4-year PhD', i.e. studying as part of a 1+3 arrangement (1-year MRes/MSc plus 3-year PhD), like all 1st-year doctoral students, you will still need to fulfil the Doctoral Academic Communication Requirement (DACR) at the start of the PhD stage. Your master’s degree is considered as the English language entry requirement for the PhD.

Yes, you can take advantage of our higher-level courses, self-study provision and 1:1 drop-ins and consultations at any point during your doctoral programme.

Students must take the first available assessment (DACR A1) after fully registering onto their doctoral programme, within 3 months of the registration date. This is because the aim of the Requirement is to identify as soon as possible those who need to improve their writing competence, and to ensure they can access support in the first 9 months of their doctoral programme.

DACR A2 is to be taken by students who scored level 1 or 2 on DACR A1, and have normally completed both Academic Writing 1 and Academic Writing 2. It is part of the Early Stage Assessment (ESA) carried out by your department.  Please note that the latest a student can take DACR A2 is 12 months (full-time students) and 24 months (part-time students) after the date of initial registration for their doctoral degree.

You can, but because DACR Assessment 2 (DACR A2) is a progress check, students are recommended to take it once they have attended both the Academic Writing 1 and Academic Writing 2 courses. DACR A2 is taken around the time of the Early Stage Assessment (ESA), so if there's still time for you to take both courses before your ESA, we strongly recommend you do so.

Please view the list of upcoming assessment dates.

To book a place on an assessment, please select a suitable date on this webpage.

These are not ‘pass or fail’ tests, so you shouldn’t worry about trying to ‘pass’ them. DACR A1 is a diagnostic assessment to identify any gap between a student’s entry level academic writing competence and the level they will need to reach in order to complete their doctoral programme. No preparation or revision is therefore required. DACR A2 is a progress check that mimics the structure of DACR A1 and so does not require preparation or revision. Further information on the assessments.

These are not ‘pass or fail’ tests. The purpose of the assessments is to identify any gap between a student’s academic writing competence and the level they will need to reach in order to complete their doctoral programme. Further information on the assessments.

Results are normally reported 2-3 weeks after the assessment date and will be sent to you via email. We don’t normally provide feedback on DACR Assessment 1, because it is a diagnostic assessment. If we are concerned about your progress on DACR Assessment 2, we will offer you a feedback session. Further information on the assessments.

Yes, we will email the result to you and to your administrator, supervisor(s) and DPS.

No, these are diagnostic or progress assessments, not ‘tests’.

We will contact you via email to advise you on which courses are most suitable for you at each stage of your doctoral programme. If you would like to discuss this advice, please contact the CfAE administrator.

Advanced Academic Writing is for those who have a high level of language proficiency and focuses on effective communication at research level. 

However, if your priority is writing a paper for publication, we recommend you take our Writing a Research Paper course.

Writing a Research Paper is for those with a high level of language proficiency and are at the stage of writing papers for publication. This course will train you to use research articles in your own field as input to create effective writing models and to identify the key language features and writing conventions. 

However, if you're not currently at the stage of writing a paper and if your priority is improving your academic STEMM writing in general, we recommend you take our Advanced Academic Writing course.

• You can register online for our doctoral academic writing courses*. The registration period and link can be found on the individual course pages. *Please note that if you are eligible for our 2^nd-year Improving Academic Writing programme, you will receive the recommendation and registration link for this programme with your DACR A2 result. 

• You can register online for our doctoral technical speaking courses. The registration period and link can be found on the individual course pages.

• You can register online for our general speaking and listening courses during the registration period indicated on the page.

Yes. STEMM research is multi-disciplinary and the multi-disciplinary nature of our courses helps students practise communicating their work to researchers in different fields.

Our doctoral academic writing courses are approximately 3 hours per week over an 8-week period.

Our doctoral technical speaking courses are approximately 2 hours per week (a 1.5-hour live session + 30 minutes' follow-up/remote activities) for 4 weeks.

Courses are not compulsory, but if we suggest you attend a course, consider our recommendation carefully; we won’t advise you to take a course unless we think you need to.

The courses are not ‘pass or fail’ courses, but students who are unable to complete all parts of the course and/or who do not submit all the course assignments may be advised to retake the course before continuing.

You can register online for a one-to-one consultation or drop-in.

You can book a consultation with a tutor to discuss an external document (e.g. a research article or conference abstract), or a drop-in to get advice on your communication based on internal documents (e.g. an ESA report or a thesis). Please note that neither of these is not a proofreading service, but an opportunity to help you identify and understand language areas for improvement. You can register online for a one-to-one consultation or drop-in.

Our Effective Presentation Skills course will help you with this. You can also book a consultation (for an external presentation) or a drop-in (for a presentation that is part of your course) to look at your presentation slides and to give you feedback on your presentation skills, delivery and pronunciation. You can register online for a one-to-one consultation. or drop-in

The CfAE does not offer a proofreading service. However, the aim of the one-to-one consultations and drop-ins is to help you identify and understand language areas for improvement. You can register online for a one-to-one consultation or drop-in.