Impacts of a professional practice doctorate: a collaborative enquiry

Doctoral education aims to benefit those who undertake it, but does it exert a wider influence? Professional doctorates are commonly designed to have an impact beyond the individual concerned, but is this influence realised? This article focuses on a collaborative enquiry by a group of academics and doctoral alumni from non-discipline-specific professional doctorates. The enquiry examined how the professional practice of the graduates changed as a result of their studies and what influence this had on their work and their profession. It found that there was considerable impact on the wider context of the alumni, but that these effects were due more to the capacity-building effect of the doctorate than on the particular outcomes of the study undertaken.