The first professional doctoral program was established in 1972 by
Pace University in the State of New York in the United States. Other universities (see #List of Schools Offering Doctor of Professional Studies Degrees) around the world now offer the professional doctoral degree. Doctoral studies researchers, Gill and Hoppe, have reported rapid growth in professional doctoral degree programs outside of the United States. In the
United Kingdom, professional doctoral degrees became established in the 1980s, when it was recognized that high-level programs were needed that were designed for experienced professional practitioners rather than for academic researchers. Many professional doctoral degrees in the United Kingdom are profession-specific and contain a mix of taught modules, research and a
dissertation. Several universities that offer professional doctoral degree programs in the United Kingdom allow students to study part-time. In 2005, Powell and Long found that most professional doctoral degrees awarded in the UK were in the fields of engineering, educational and clinical psychology. They found that professional doctoral degrees in business and nursing were also emerging at that time. In 2010, Brown and Cooke reported an "explosion" of professional doctorate programs in fields such as the arts, architecture and computer science. In 2016, the
Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) released a comprehensive study of professional doctorates which found substantial growth in these programs. Since 2012, the UK Council for Graduate Education (UKCGE) has sponsored a bi-annual conference devoted to the study of professional doctoral education and related programs. In the
United States, the DPS was once considered by the
United States Department of Education and the
National Science Foundation (NSF) to be a research doctorate equivalent to the
Ph.D. Along with the
Doctor of Education, the
Doctor of Social Science, the Doctor of Applied Science, and the Doctor of Library Science, the NSF no longer includes the DPS in its periodic Survey of Earned Doctorates (SEP) report, a statistical report on the number and range of research doctorates awarded in the United States. [See: https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/srvydoctorates/ and https://www.nsf.gov/statistics/sed/2012/start.cfm, Appendix Table a1]. The DPS was dropped from the report in 2005. In New York State, the Doctor of Professional Studies is an official degree title applicable to doctoral programs with a professional focus in a variety of disciplines. In a 2002 report, the Australian Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), states "Doctoral education in Australia is currently under pressure to become more industry focused." Citing this report, Fink suggests "professional doctorates may be able to fulfill [the need to make doctoral education more industry focused] by developing and sustaining close collaboration between universities and industry. The Professional Doctorate (ProfDoc) can be seen as an alternative to the PhD because it can provide an opportunity for the business professional to gain a doctoral qualification, albeit in a different mode." ==Characteristics==