Access to your final thesis
The University’s policy for sharing final theses
The University's Presentation of Theses policy requires that all final Postgraduate Research eTheses are made Open Access no longer than 12 months after submission, unless an exception to the policy is required for reasons of sponsorship or sensitive content. This aligns with the University’s Publications policy which applies to all students and employees of the University.
The majority of PGR students will be able to comply with the policy by selecting either immediate Open Access, or Open Access with a 12 month embargo, for their final eThesis. The embargo is a period of time during which access to the thesis will be restricted. An eThesis which is embargoed will not be discoverable or accessible via the University’s systems. If you're planning to submit a Journal format thesis, there are additional considerations related to sharing your thesis. Consult our Journal format thesis submission guidance.
Exceptions to the University’s policy for sharing final theses
It will not be possible for certain PGR students to comply with the policy, in which case an exception to the policy can be requested. The following scenarios outline the access level options available:
Scenario 1: Thesis can comply with default policy
Access level options: Immediate Open Access OR Open Access with 12 month embargo
Scenario 2: Thesis meets one or more of the following criteria:
Contractual restrictions imposed by sponsor
Contractual reasons of theses partners (e.g. external co-supervisors)
IP / product protection / patent pending / potential commercialisation
Thesis contains personally identifiable or ethically sensitive data
Access level options: Open Access with 5 year embargo OR Indefinite closed access
Scenario 3: Thesis contains data likely to be included in future research by supervisor or collaborators
Access level: Open Access with 2 year embargo
Please be assured that this access level is for your final thesis, not your examination thesis, which is automatically closed access.
Benefits of Open Access
There are many benefits for researchers and the wider world to making research, including PGR theses, openly available. Find out more about the [Benefits of Open Access]
Plans to publish
The majority of students should be able to comply with the policy by selecting either Immediate Open Access or a 12 month embargo for their final thesis. The default option of Open Access with 12 month embargo allows you 12 months to arrange publication before your thesis becomes openly available.
The Scholarly Publications & Licensing Team at MIT surveyed the major publishers’ policies regarding graduate students’ reuse of work previously made available through their thesis and concluded that the majority of publishers do not generally consider a thesis as a prior publication.
Here are examples of position statements on this issue from several major academic publishers:
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Elsevier: ‘Elsevier does not view the following uses of a work as prior publication: publication in the form of an abstract; publication as an academic thesis; publication as an electronic preprint.’
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Nature: ‘Nature Portfolio will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis which has been published according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification.”
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Taylor & Francis: ‘Depositing your PhD in a repository won’t impact on future publication because there … should always be substantial differences between your thesis and a journal article, in length, style, format and content. You can take a portion of your PhD research and turn it into a journal article, or even more than one article, but you need to always ensure it matches the aims, scope and requirements of that journal (e.g. on considering/referencing surrounding literature, relevance or originality for instance). What you can’t do is just lift a portion of your PhD and submit it.’
It is advisable for publication plans to form part of supervisor-student discussions, including after completion of the Notice of Submission form. This will ensure the supervisor is aware of the student’s intentions with regard to publishing, and any concerns about final thesis access can be addressed.
If you're planning to submit a thesis which contains published or soon-to-be published work, including Journal format theses, we recommend consulting our Journal format thesis submission guidance. You can also access the Library’s Copyright guide, or Contact us for more information.