PhD by Published, Creative or Established Work PhD

What you’ll study

While traditional academic outputs, such as peer reviewed journal articles, may form part of the portfolio, this is not essential. There is scope to include a range of non-traditional outputs within the portfolio, as long as these are of direct relevance to the needs of legal practice, commerce, industry, culture, society, and to the public and voluntary sectors. However, some level of dissemination will be required. While this does not necessarily require outputs to have been published in a conventional format, candidates must usually be able to demonstrate that their work has been made available to, or has conferred a benefit, beyond the individual’s own organisation.

While images, performances and artefacts can be considered for inclusion in the portfolio, in the context of law it is envisaged that outputs will predominantly be in a written format, such as:

• Driving or drafting of policies or procedures at national or international level e.g. via a leadership or draftsman role;
• Practice-related research or investigation carried out outside an academic context e.g. for a professional regulatory or organisation such as the Higher Education Academy;
• Judgments or arguments/opinions which advance or change the law or legal practice; and
• Outputs that have been adopted for use by a wider audience, locally, regionally, nationally or internationally, such as a legal profession or sub-section thereof.