Human Performance and Innovation - Professional Doctorate

Program Overview

The Professional Doctorate in Human Performance and Innovation is a 4-year part-time program designed for professionals seeking to drive innovation in their field. The program culminates in a professional innovation/research component where candidates develop and implement targeted innovations within their professional domain.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

The Professional Doctorate (PD) in Human Performance and Innovation (4-year part-time, Level 10 NFQ, 270 ECTS) provides an opportunity for professionals in human behavior and performance (e.g., sport, high-level performance, physical activity behavior, and promotion related to health and education sectors) to engage in an advanced degree characterized by a systematic and multi-disciplinary implementation and evaluation of targeted and necessary innovations. The program is delivered exclusively through e-learning modalities. The premise of the PD in Human Performance and Innovation recognizes that mature practitioners, embedded in professional environments, already have substantial domain-specific knowledge, expertise, and experiences. The program of study is customized to the learning and development needs of the doctoral candidate. The PD route thus offers practitioners a personally tailored program of study designed to drive, implement, and evaluate beneficial innovations within their realm of expertise and serve their future career ambitions.

Objectives:

Upon successful completion of the program, students will be able to:

• Appraise existing knowledge and practice and apply translational research methodologies to create innovative solutions to industry practice and challenges within their professional domain.
• Evaluate current industry practice and propose, develop, and implement alternative and more effective approaches.
• Combine multi-disciplinary knowledge and abilities of self and others to resolve complex “real-world” challenges in order to innovate and transform professional practice.
• Innovatively apply new developments and initiatives applicable to their professional practice and industry domain while increasing the ability to draw upon practices and innovations from other knowledge fields and sectors.
• Adopt creative dissemination strategies to effectively communicate their innovation findings to a wide range of audiences within their professional field.
• Integrate management and applied practice skills, such as leadership, planning, change management, and multi-disciplinary approaches necessary to resolve current complex issues and develop new innovations necessary to implement positive change in their field of professional practice.
• Determine applications of their research for individuals, circumstances, and organizations both within and outside their professional field.
• Determine and develop future goals and areas of development within their own professional and industry practice.
• Work independently and collaborate effectively as part of a multi-disciplinary team involving a variety of professional colleagues and partners.
• Demonstrate creativity in problem-solving and identifying innovative cutting-edge solutions to complex challenges within their domain and pushing the boundaries of professional practice.
• Conceptualize the research process and how it is applied and translated to professional practice.
• Apply ethical principles to conducting research within their professional domain.
• Devise based on effective self-reflection skills an ongoing personal and professional development plan identifying strengths and areas in need of further development.
• Enhance their professional practice through systematic inquiry and development and demonstrate the relevance of their learning to their own professional context.

Outline:

The program involves both a taught (72 ECTS) and a professional innovation/research component (198 ECTS). The program is delivered exclusively through e-learning modalities such as online lectures, discussion boards, webinars, and linked questions and answers forums and one-to-one online supervision tutorials and discussion. The learning experience is primarily self-directed, supported by digital/online interaction with the doctoral supervisors of the candidate. The scheduling of online interactions will be flexible and agreed upon between the doctoral candidate and supervisor/tutor. The primary assessment modes will be written and oral presentation and defense, critical written review of extant literature, and engagement with knowledge translation and dissemination activities. Relevant and recent developments and research findings will be incorporated into the candidate learning experience at all stages. This will occur by default via the engagement with and critical evaluation of the extant literature. In addition, the relevant professional contexts, practices, and experiences of the candidate and others who work in similar, related, and different professional contexts will be integrated into the candidate learning experience. The engagement of a 2nd internal/external supervisor who has specialist knowledge in the innovation identified by the candidate will be targeted.

Assessment:

The primary assessment modes will be written and oral presentation and defense, critical written review of extant literature, and engagement with knowledge translation and dissemination activities.

Teaching:

The program is delivered exclusively through e-learning modalities such as online lectures, discussion boards, webinars, and linked questions and answers forums and one-to-one online supervision tutorials and discussion. The learning experience is primarily self-directed, supported by digital/online interaction with the doctoral supervisors of the candidate.

Other:

• The program is QS Ranked Top 100 worldwide (Sport-related programs).
• Exit Award: An exit award of a Professional Masters in Human Performance and Innovation is possible.
The successful completion of the taught modules highlighted in bold above (72 credits) and the submission of a stand-alone thesis building on the work completed by the student to date will be required for consideration of the exit award. 123 credits are required for the award of Professional Masters in Human Performance and Innovation – e.g., at the end of year 2 to achieve 123 credits, the successful completion of all modules is required.
• Modules are graded on a pass/fail basis.
In the context of the Professional Doctorate in Human Performance and Innovation, M-Graded modules facilitate the evolution of your critical thinking and innovation project design and implementation across a number of semesters.

EU - €4,888 per annum Non- EU - €7,504 per annum