Professional Doctorates: a reflective study of impact.

Professional Doctorate programmes are well established but consideration of the impact of research projects undertaken as part of the Professional Doctorate is limited. After initial discussion of the nature of the Professional Doctorates which we lead, and the experiences of candidates within these programmes, we use our experience to consider the impact of the projects against criteria identified by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC). Impact is considered at the personal, organisational and national level, and across economic and societal as well as academic spheres. Based on our experience, we argue that Professional Doctorates have considerable personal impact, impact on the professional work of the individual, and impact on the development of the workforce. In addition, impact is seen in the application of theory to practice-based issues within and between professional groups, and in the development of organisational practice and policy. We suggest that impact can also be evident in developing technical capacity, developing new models, reframing debates and developing theory. Impact can be at the level of the organisation, the local community, or at a national level. The paper ends with an invitation to debate the issue of impact from Professional Doctorate research.