the United Kingdom
University of Portsmouth| The award | How you will study | Study duration | Course start | Domestic course fees | International course fees |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| ProfDoc | Part-time | 4 - 7 years | October | find out | find out |
Overview
The University of Portsmouth was one of the first institutions to respond to the rapid changes within health and social care by offering a Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care Disciplines programme. This programme started in October 2000, and has been highly successful in its delivery to these professionals.
The Professional Doctorate is an alternative pathway to a doctorate qualification. It is a rigorous programme of advanced study and research, designed specifically to meet the needs of commerce, industry and professional groups and is the professionally oriented counterpart to the more theoretical PhD. It enables students to study a specific subject to the same depth as PhD students, but also allows them to apply learning to their professional practice.
This course is recognised internationally as a qualification granted to those who have reached the highest level of professional and academic achievement in their field of endeavour.
What you'll experience
We offer the following health and social care programmes at doctorate level:
These routes are taught together. This enables students in each cohort to benefit from the experience of others and provides a unique inter-professional learning environment.
Programme specifications
Benefits of a Professional Doctorate in Health and Social Care
The Professional Doctorate is open to a wide range of health and social care professionals, who have an active interest in practice-based research and professional practice issues, wish to attain the highest level of professional and academic achievement and develop their career within the health and social care arena.
Relevance and application of the research to the professional environment will be a pivotal feature of the programme and reflection on practice will be integral to the learning process.
The programme aims to enhance personal development planning for continuing professional development and encourage an advanced level of critical, analytical, debating and publishing skills, plus knowledge of the range of different research methods encountered in professional practice.
Within the National Health Service (NHS) a Professional Doctorate is now being seen as an essential academic qualification for attaining higher level posts within the NHS Agenda for Change career framework.
Structure and teaching
This is a part-time course, which has been specifically designed so that it can be available to health and social care professionals from all over the world, to fit with the demands of full-time employment. The course structure is only offered in a part-time mode and is divided into two parts.
Attendance for Part 1 will be in six study blocks of three days duration spread over two academic years. Typically, students will be required to attend the University for up to 18 days for the whole of Part 1. Attendance for Part 2 will only be required for tutorials, seminars and oral presentations.
Part 1
This is the 'taught' component of the programme, which will equip students with the skills that they will need in preparation for Part 2. Part 1 consists of four units:
Part 2
This is the research and professional development component and comprises one or two pieces of practice-based research, linked with a commentary demonstrating the relevance of the research to both practice and the practitioner. The nature of this study may include pure basic research or applied research related, for example, to a management or educational setting. This should normally take between 24 and 48 months to complete.
Assessment will be by a thesis, an oral presentation and a viva voce examination.
The University offers Accreditation for Prior Learning (APL), for applicants with previous learning experience and other academic achievement which could be taken into account for some of the units of study. Claims will be considered on a case-by-case basis.
We use the best and most current research and professional practice, alongside feedback from our students, to make sure course content is relevant to your future career or further studies.
Therefore, some course content may change over time to reflect changes in the discipline or industry and some optional units may not run every year. If a unit doesn’t run, we’ll let you know as soon as possible and help you choose an alternative unit.
https://www.port.ac.uk/study/postgraduate-research/funding-your-research-degree
A postgraduate level qualification or equivalent in an appropriate subject and a suitable workplace environment to support the professional research and development project. Applicants are subject to interview.
English language proficiency at a minimum of IELTS band 6.5 with no component score below 6.0.
Below are some suggested courses at other providers that you may also be interested in:
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If you do not meet the entry requirements for this course then consider one of these postgraduate preparation courses from another institution:
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Engineering Institute of Technology
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