What is Professional Doctorate in Sport and Exercise DSaE?

The Professional Doctorate has been designed for sport and exercise professionals who are interested in engaging with major projects within or beyond their organisation. You’ll be able to lead and respond innovatively to the rapidly changing sports, physical activity and wellbeing environment. It’s aimed at professionals who may not have studied for some time but are experts in their area – providing a higher degree programme specifically structured to support change within professional practice and/or within your organisation. You’ll be able to maintain your professional commitments – the programme integrates doctoral level study with continuing professional practice. We develop leaders who can improve practice within sport and physical activity realms, by addressing local, regional, national and international concerns, and who have the ability to build evidence bases that inform policy and practice development. The unique structure of the award supports you to ensure your academic research skills match your professional knowledge. During your Professional Doctorate, the changes you propose, plan and, potentially, implement are designed to have a positive influence on your professional practice/facets of your organisation.

Study style

The DSE is typically 4-6 years and wholly delivered online. It’s a structured route to doctoral level achievement, delivered in two phases. The initial phase is a pre-thesis element, comprising two taught modules over a period of 18 months. These modules are delivered via a blended learning model of online delivery, webinars and remotely supervised and guided study. You will develop advanced skills in critical thinking and working with leading academics, you can engage with a wide range of topics, and undertake in-depth study of some of the complex issues facing sport today, for example those based on applied sport performance, clinical practice, health promotion, applied sports coaching and community engagement. The programme provides a focus for ’embedded scholarship’ within a range of sport and exercise professions. In phase two, you present and undertake your formal research plan. Having completed your research project, you submit and defend a thesis in a viva voce. Linked to the real-world relevance and original nature of the project, the DSE provides an understanding of issues in the sport and exercise professions that it is difficult to attain through other means. The acquired knowledge and understanding gained through the research journey can then be integrated directly into the organisations and systems in which you work.