in the united kingdom, professional doctoral degrees became established in the 1980s, when it was recognized that high-level programs were needed that were designed for experienced professional practitioners rather than for academic researchers. many professional doctoral degrees in the united kingdom are profession-specific and contain a mix of taught modules, research and a dissertation. several universities that offer professional doctoral degree programs in the united kingdom allow students to study part-time. in 2005, powell and long found that most professional doctoral degrees awarded in the uk were in the fields of engineering, educational and clinical psychology. they found that professional doctoral degrees in business and nursing were also emerging at that time. in 2010, brown and cooke reported an "explosion" of professional doctorate programs in fields such as the arts, architecture and computer science. in 2016, the higher education funding council for england (hefce) released a comprehensive study of professional doctorates which found substantial growth in these programs. since 2012, the uk council for graduate education (ukcge) has sponsored a bi-annual conference devoted to the study of professional doctoral education and related programs.