Conceptualizing the practitioner doctorate

Professional doctorates now form an established alternative to the PhD, both in the UK and Australia. Recent developments have seen the emergence of what some commentators call second‐generation doctorates, more closely geared to the needs of professional practitioners. The current culmination of this development is represented by what might be termed practitioner doctorates, based on development projects which result in substantial organizational or professional change and (to paraphrase the widely used criterion for a PhD thesis) a significant contribution to practice. These programmes pose a challenge to traditional notions of doctoral work based on research. They can, however, be conceptualized in a way that is both robust academically and represents a high level of adequacy for the complex and far‐reaching problems encountered in contemporary society.