The aim of this study is to understand the design of professional development programmes in teacher-based and context-based chemistry curriculum innovations. Firstly, the goals of these programmes are discussed and related to the concept of empowerment. Next, in a selection of empirical studies, four general strategies for professional development are analysed (providing access to innovative units, organising reflection, collaboration and organising the design of innovative units by teachers). This analysis results in two outcomes: (1) a sequence of events for teacher-based and context-based curriculum design and (2) the conclusion that in these studies explicit relations between the goals, the strategies and the activities in these programmes are lacking; they should be made more explicit. It is recommended that a theory for teacher professional development should be used to describe these relations.