Impact of a professional doctorate on candidates’ practice and professional development

The professional doctorate has been part of the doctoral landscape for the last two decades but it is only recently that debates as to its ‘newness’ in terms of rigour and validity started to subside, to be replaced with the more mature debate as to the variations in design, their impact and their role as advanced professional development for senior practitioners. Indeed, Research Excellence Framework (2014) placed a much stronger emphasis on the impact of research and assessed not just the academic impact but also the broader social, environmental, and economic benefits of research. If this trend is to continue professional doctorates should be placed in the heart of the next REF 2020 submission given the impact ‘professional research’ has been found to have on the wider community and business environment. But how does the professional doctorate impact on individual careers and professional development and thus on candidates’ own practice?