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Relatively few studies have explored the motivations of students in pursuing a professional doctorate. The study reported in this article is based on data from 29 students pursuing professional doctorates. The findings indicate a diverse range of motivations for taking this route: a 'need' for theory, deeper insight into practice for some but frustration with practice for others, the influence of 'critical incidents' in the past, the attraction of a challenge, and a variety of extrinsic factors. The authors present and discuss these data, drawing on previous work and attempting to move the debate further. They contend that the variety and diversity of doctoral students following the 'professional' route has important implications for the curriculum, the pedagogy and the assessment of professional doctorates for the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

What it is like to be an academic working in a ‘new’ university in the 2000s depends upon specific contexts and individual biographies. Even so, it is the case that change, contingent upon local and national policy initiatives, is endemic in the higher education sector and has had some impact upon most people working there. This article explores some of the work‐related perceptions and experiences of a group of staff working in a School of Education at a ‘new’ university with a view to gaining a sense of their understanding of what being an academic means to them. These people, who had, initially, been hired essentially as lecturers, were facing increased demands to become ‘research active’. Not only did these demands lead to increased workloads, they also had implications for professional and personal identities, and, consequently, for how people felt about, and undertook, their work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]