The Contribution to Climate Change Research of the Professional Doctorate and PhD: More of the Same but of a Different Flavour?

This chapter proposes that the professional doctorate and the doctor of philosophy are the same in genus but differ in the way in which they contribute to the study of climate change. It is argued from a position that, given the changes in doctoral forms since 2005, there is no epistemological or educational reason to distinguish by some notion of importance or quality between professional doctorates under the rubric of Aristotelian notion of Gnosis nor from the perspective of the complexity of expertise, capabilities and transferable skills. In this they are the same but different. I will, however, suggest that there are subtle differences that do exist in the two approaches based on praxis and poiesis that might support different research agendas in terms of the climate crisis.