Resource library

This report on the Professional Doctorate (PD) in the UK was commissioned by the UKCGE to inform debate on the design, validation, audit and relevance of PDs to the needs and aspirations of the doctoral candidate, the requirements of Universities, the industrial and professional employers and society at large.

This report is based on a survey conducted in March 2010 aimed at establishing an overview of current trends in practice among UK institutions with respect to addressing issues of confidentiality as they pertain to PhD theses in the UK

The purpose of this 2010 report is to give an informed update on the position in the UK of the professional doctorate.

The two earlier reports in this series (UKCGE 1995, UKCGE 2004) charted the growth in the proportion of HEIs with a graduate school, with the majority of pre-1992 institutions subscribing to this model. The principal conclusion of this report is that this model also applies to the majority of the post-1992 HEIs.

This review of the preparation of graduate teaching assistants (GTAs) was commissioned by the UKCGE because there have been many developments in the last ten years both in our understanding of academic practice and of the context in which doctoral researchers are working.

This paper seeks to identify the current context within which doctoral level education is being undertaken in the UK and review the kinds of developments that are taking place that affect the quality of that education.

This report was prepared by Professor Stuart Powell (former Honorary Secretary UKCGE) from the University of Hertfordshire and Nicola Crouch, Administrator of UKCGE following a survey of the Council’s member institutions. Its main purpose was to map the range of awards that are described as being at higher doctoral level and their incidence across member institutions.

This 2007 report contains analysis and discussion of the responses to a questionnaire distributed on the issue of access given to doctoral examiners’ reports.

This report and discussion paper is about the Professional Doctorate Award in the UK – focussing upon the range of awards available and the nomenclatures used.

The report gives some background to the issue of confidentiality of theses, outlines the nature and scope of the survey and then reports and discusses its findings before setting out some conclusions.