Applying for a professional doctorate

In this section you will fill in basic details about yourself.

In the preferred start date field, you should write January. This is because this is when our professional doctorate courses start each year.

You can include up to 20 different qualifications in this section. We prefer you to only include those from degree level onwards. This is because these are the only ones we need to make our decision.

We will need to review and authenticate your certificates. It is useful to scan and upload copies of these in your application.

You will also need to bring your certificates with you if you're invited to an interview.

To apply for a professional doctorate you need to:

• Be working in a relevant field
• Have at least 2 years of relevant professional experience

You do not need to give your whole professional history in this section. We only need to know about experience which is relevant to the course.

We use the same application form for many of the courses we offer. This means you will see a request for a research proposal in this section. However, for a professional doctorate we want you to submit a personal statement instead.

This is because you may not have a doctoral proposal in mind at this stage. We encourage you to use the first 2 years of your course to experiment with ideas. You will then be able to commit to a final research project.

Your personal statement should be between 1500 and 3000 words.

It should tell us about:

Why you want to study

Why have you chosen to study for a professional doctorate? Why have you chosen a professional doctorate instead of a PhD? Tell us why you think this course suits your circumstances.

Your previous experience

How does your previous or current experience make you suitable for this course? You may want to tell us about ways you have already developed practice in your profession. This may be through helping colleagues, new initiatives, or as a member of a professional body.

Your current work

How will your study fit in with your current work? Tell us how you will fit in enough time to study, and attend residential dates. We try to time these to fall in school half terms to help those who teach. However, the dates may not always coincide with your local half term. You need to show us how you'll be able to set aside the time you need for the course.

How the course will benefit you

How will the course benefit you, your employers or clients? How will it benefit the wider profession to which you belong?

Your areas of interest

While you do not need a detailed proposal, we want to know about what subject areas are of interest to you. What do you want to explore in detail, and why? Is there a question, incident or problem you want to investigate in depth?

Remember, your final research topic will need approval. This will partly depend on what expertise is available to supervise your project.

We recommend that you get in touch with your referees before you submit your application. This will help us to make sure we can process your application quickly.

You should provide a reference from your place of work if you need your employer's permission to join the course and take part in residentials.

Your referees' statements do not need to be long. They should show the interview panel your ability and potential for study at doctoral level. It is useful to have at least 1 academic referee, if possible.