Professional Doctorate

This new professional Doctorate builds on a very successful postgraduate portfolio which includes MSc, Master of Philosophy and doctor of Philosophy.

The School has cultivated a dynamic academic culture that is characterised by staff who engage productively in research and knowledge transfer that is relevant to the practice of justice and welfare professionals. Research activity in the school makes a distinct contribution to both the national and international arena by advancing the evidence base for legal and criminological practice and by contributing to knowledge production about justice and welfare through the disciplines of:

  • Law
  • Criminology
  • Sociology
  • Politics
  • History

The Professional Doctorate is a modular programme which offers professionals an exciting and challenging alternative to the traditional PhD. It has been designed to support the personal, vocational and intellectual development of professionals, equipping them to take demanding leadership roles in an era of joint based practice.

This programme will enable professionals to conduct research at doctoral level that has relevance both to professional interest and organisational context.

The course is conducted with block teaching to allow you to integrate your studies with your work.

Aims of the Programme

The Professional Doctorate will provide a rigorous academic programme of learning and research with progressive and incremental goals, learning outcomes that are relevant to the participating organisation or the wider social context:

  1. develop research skills and techniques appropriate to the programme learning outcomes, including the ability to critically review the relevant literature, manage a database, locate all types of relevant publications and other sources of information technology to search for information,
    manage it and write about it;
  2. develop effective project management skills, including goal setting, prioritisation, designing and executing data acquisition and collation,
    planning and organising written work and effective time management;
  3. develop high level competencies as an ethical professional, inter alia, ethics, health and safety, copyright, data protection, practice and
    intellectual property rights;
  4. deliver skilled communications with, an ability to construct, sustain and articulate an argument to a diverse audience both orally and in
    writing;
  5. enhance personal effectiveness in acquiring new knowledge, demonstrating initiative, flexibility, self reliance and independence;
  6. develop independent lifelong learners in a chosen field making an original contribution to knowledge and practice;
  7. provide a learning framework which enables students to develop critical and evaluative skills in research methodology;
  8. facilitate a process of evaluation of methods of professional communication;
  9. identify and explore the rationale for the various constraints within which professional practice should operate in modern societies.
  10. facilitate a detailed and comprehensive evaluation of areas of planned change in professional practice/service delivery;
  11. facilitate and evaluate change in the individual student.

Contact Dr Chris Nottingham for further details or for an application pack

Dr Chris Nottingham, 
Head of Research
+44 (0)141 331 3169
c.nottingham@gcal.ac.uk