Doctor of Education-EdD
Key Details
- Award
- Doctor of Education (EdD)
- Application Deadline
- 17 April 2026 (midnight)
- Start Date
- 1 October 2026
- Duration
- 5 years (Part Time)
)
Welcome to Norwich
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Overview, Research Interests and Expertise
Established in 1997, the EdD is a five-year part-time programme designed to meet the needs of professionals working in areas related to education, training and development who wish to draw on their everyday practice towards gaining a doctorate. This programme recruits home and international students every two years, and applications for an October 2026 start are now open.
We invite applications on research themes that are among the research expertise and supervisory availability within the school. We encourage prospective applicants to visit the profile of corresponding potential supervisors and signal in their application the match of their research topic with areas of our expertise. Exceptional applications on educational research outside these areas are also welcome.
Outline of Structure and Dates
If you start in October 2026, you will register directly for the EdD degree, the first two years of which will be considered a probationary period. During the first two years, you will attend sessions on educational theory and research methods in the form of four weekend study blocks. In Year One you will work on two assignments and in Year Two you will develop your research proposal and complete an ethics application. After the successful completion of the assignments and the research proposal, your progress will be assessed by a probationary review panel (composed of your supervisors and an internal assessor). Once your probation has been confirmed and your ethics application has been approved, you will be ready to progress to the research stage in Years Three, Four and Five. During the research stage, you will be supported in producing a series of formative assignments towards the preparation of the final thesis of up to 60,000 words.
The four weekend study blocks in the first two years offer you an opportunity to engage, together with your cohort, in advanced research training that is required before the EdD thesis submission. In addition, you will benefit from excellent face-to-face and online training in the Social Sciences Faculty. A successful completion of the EdD also requires personal independent study time of at least 60 hours per month.
Indicative teaching schedule 2026-28
- Study Block 1 (in-person): Saturday and Sunday - October 2026
Study Block 2 (in-person): Saturday and Sunday - March 2027
Study Block 3 (in-person): Saturday and Sunday - October 2027
Study Block 4 (in-person): Saturday and Sunday - June 2028
Attendance and participation in the study blocks is expected and sessions will be in-person. Supervision meetings, probationary review meetings, and viva voces may be offered face-to-face or online depending on individuals circumstances.
Assessment
Year One
- Critical literature review (3,500 words)
- Comparison of methodologies (6,500 words)
Year Two
- Research Proposal (5,000 words)
- Ethics Application
Year Three and Year Four
- Four formative assignments including literature review, methodology, results, and discussion/conclusion
Year Five
- A thesis of up to 60,000 words, with an oral examination.
Entry Requirements, Fees and Funding
Candidates will normally be expected to have a relevant master’s degree (preferably with a research component or other experience of research in social sciences). It is also expected that applicants will have experience in a relevant professional area.
If English is not your first language or you are from a country that is not on the UKVI list of English speaking countries, you may be required to provide evidence of your proficiency in the English language. Further information on English language requirements can be found on our information pages. Information about visa requirements for international students can be found on our visa advice and international student support page.
Tuition fees for the EdD programme are available at our tuition fee page. Fees do not include accommodation and meals if you opt to stay on campus or locally for weekend study blocks. You will also need to provide any equipment required for attendance and for your own research. This may include audio, video, and photographic recording equipment or other digital media. You can find further details regarding doctoral loans for home students and information about scholarships on our postgraduate funding page. UEA alumni can apply for the 10% Alumni Tuition Fee Discount Scheme, a 10% fee reduction scholarship for graduates looking to return for postgraduate study at UEA (terms and conditions apply).
How to Apply
Applications can be made online. Please ensure that your application is accompanied by:
- Official transcripts and certificates (in English) of your higher education qualifications.
- A Personal Statement
- A CV detailing your work experience to date.
- Two academic references.
- An official copy of your English language results (if relevant)
- A Research Proposal of around 2,000 words
The research proposal
The research proposal submitted with the application is not expected to be a perfect or the finished product, as it is likely to undergo changes over the course of the first two years of study, in consultation with your supervisors. However, it has an important role to play in that it is used to judge both the quality of the proposed project as well as the fit of the topic with the research expertise and supervisory availability within the school. This may be particularly important if the course is oversubscribed.
A successful research proposal is, therefore, likely to:
- Be of relevance to the school's research area (see ‘Research Expertise and Interests’ in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning).
- Have an appeal for supervisors who have interests or expertise in that area (see ‘Research Expertise and Interests’ in the School of Education and Lifelong Learning for research interests of potential supervisors, as well as their research profile and publications). The application asks you to identify possible supervisor(s) and this will help speed up the processing of your application.
- Show relevant prior experience of research or practice in the proposed topic area and indicate why you are motivated or excited about the topic.
- Focus on a viable issue or set of questions that it proposes to explore.
- Show a sense of the contribution the research can make to the field (in terms of professional practice, theory and/or methodology) and respond to questions such as: Who might benefit? How might it change things? What 'new' knowledge might be gained?
- Convey a good grasp of key texts or debates in the research literature in the field, and if possible, a theoretical framework for the investigation.
- Contain a tentative research plan outlining possible research methodology and methods that will be used to explore the topic. It would be useful to also indicate a tentative type of data to be collected, the size of the data set, and how it might be analysed.
- Contain a reasonable timescale for completion (see the course structure outlined above to get a feel of how this might assist you).
- Exhibit excellent referencing skills.
Selection to the course will be based on the proposal’s quality, applicant’s qualifications, performance at an interview, as well as on the availability of supervisors with appropriate expertise and interest in your area of research. We are now receiving enquiries for the cohort starting in October 2026. The deadline for applications is 17th April 2026. If you have any queries in relation to any aspect of the EdD or would like to discuss your application, please contact the Course Director, Dr Lee Beaumont.