Doctor of Professional Practice

Are you an advanced practitioner ready to make a significant contribution to your sector or community?

Generate substantial original knowledge from and about practices within a professional setting, and combine this with formal disciplinary knowledge. Your new knowledge will inform yourself, your field of practice and your profession. 

You’ll design and achieve new professional and personal learning goals, enabling you to create new knowledge for and about New Zealand’s workplaces through applied practice and research projects.  

The Capable NZ difference

The Capable NZ process centres you and your own career – you’ll reflect on where you’ve come from, where you are now, and where you want to go.

You will:

• analyse your work and life experiences and skills, and evaluate your strengths and capabilities
• identify, access and research relevant practice theories, models, tools, frameworks, and reflect on how these might inform and influence your work
• explore literature relevant to your field of study (academic, practitioner, policy)
• design research projects using and applying relevant methodological frameworks
• apply relevant ethical understanding to your research
• understand, consider and critique the beliefs and values that influence your own professional practices.

This innovative and advanced educational programme aims to enable you to create new knowledge for and about Aotearoa New Zealand’s workplaces through applied practice and an inquiry project [research]. This programme facilitates the development of your personal and professional practice as leaders in your field.

Full entry requirements and application information

The Doctor of Professional Practice is a competitive entry programme, with a limited numbers of candidates accepted in any one year.

You will be asked to upload an Expression of Interest during the application process. Guidance on what we would like to see in this document can be found here.   

Prospective candidates must have:

• a Master’s qualification at the standard of Excellence or Credit, or the equivalent (eg A or B grade, Honours 1 or 2), 
• and evidence to the satisfaction of the Research and Post-Graduate Committee to demonstrate: 
• extensive professional experience of an appropriate kind, relevant to the stated field of practice (for example 7-10 years);  
• ability and willingness to successfully undertake a self-managed academic process; 
• an established professional relationship and/or employment/self-employment with the opportunity to undertake projects, inquiries or other work-based activity; 
• demonstrated academic writing and researching skills at postgraduate level. 

Additionally, acceptance as a doctoral student will be after developing a research proposal and undertaking an interview with representatives of the Doctor of Professional Practice programme committee. 

It will also depend on the availability of academic mentoring in the area of the candidate’s research interests.  

• If English is not your first language, you must provide:
  • New Zealand University Entrance OR
  • Overall Academic IELTS 6.5 with no individual band score lower than 6.0 (achieved in one test completed in the last two years), OR
  • Acceptable alternative evidence of the required IELTS (see here for NZQA proficiency table and here for list of recognised proficiency tests).

If you need to improve your English Language skills, we offer a wide range of English programmes.

Multi-year enrolments from 2023 

From 1 January 2023, Otago Polytechnic joins Te Pūkenga, a new national network of vocational and applied education in Aotearoa New Zealand. You will learn in the same way, in the same place, and with the same people. The great news is that this enables us to share skills and knowledge across a network of passionate education providers, to better help you succeed. All learners who start multi-year programmes of study prior to this change, continuing into 2023 and beyond, will graduate with a dual-institution qualification, representing both Otago Polytechnic and Te Pūkenga.