phd thesis database uk

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Theses & dissertations: home, access to theses and dissertations from other institutions and from the university of cambridge.

This guide provides information on searching for theses of Cambridge PhDs and for theses of UK universities and universities abroad. 

For information and guidance on depositing your thesis as a cambridge phd, visit the cambridge office of scholarly communication pages on theses here ., this guide gives essential information on how to obtain theses using the british library's ethos service. .

On the last weekend of October, the British Library became the victim of a major cyber-attack. Essential digital services including the BL catalogue, website and online learning resources went dark, with research services like the EThOS collection of more than 600,000 doctoral theses suddenly unavailable. The BL state that they anticipate restoring more services in the next few weeks, but disruption to certain services is now expected to persist for several months. For the latest news on the attack and information on the restoration of services, please follow the BL blog here:  Knowledge Matters blog  and access the LibGuide page here:  British Library Outage Update - Electronic Legal Deposit - LibGuides at University of Cambridge Subject Libraries

A full list of resources for searching theses online is provided by the Cambridge A-Z, available here .

University of Cambridge theses

Finding a cambridge phd thesis online via the institutional repository.

The University's institutional repository, Apollo , holds full-text digital versions of over 11,000 Cambridge PhD theses and is a rapidly growing collection deposited by Cambridge Ph.D. graduates. Theses in Apollo can be browsed via this link . More information on how to access theses by University of Cambridge students can be found on the access to Cambridge theses webpage.   The requirement for impending PhD graduates to deposit a digital version in order to graduate means the repository will be increasing at a rate of approximately 1,000 per year from this source.   About 200 theses are added annually through requests to make theses Open Access or via requests to digitize a thesis in printed format.

Locating and obtaining a copy of a Cambridge PhD thesis (not yet available via the repository)

Theses can be searched in iDiscover .  Guidance on searching for theses in iDiscover can be found here .   Requests for consultation of printed theses, not available online, should be made at the Manuscripts Reading Room (Email:  [email protected] Telephone: +44 (0)1223 333143).   Further information on the University Library's theses, dissertations and prize essays collections can be consulted at this link .

Researchers can order a copy of an unpublished thesis which was deposited in print form either through the Library’s  Digital Content Unit via the image request form , or, if the thesis has been digitised, it may be available in the Apollo repository. Copies of theses may be provided to researchers in accordance with the  law  and in a manner that is common across UK libraries.  The law allows us to provide whole copies of unpublished theses to individuals as long as they sign a declaration saying that it is for non-commercial research or private study.

How to make your thesis available online through Cambridge's institutional repository

Are you a Cambridge alumni and wish to make your Ph.D. thesis available online? You can do this by depositing it in Apollo the University's institutional repository. Click here for further information on how to proceed.    Current Ph.D students at the University of Cambridge can find further information about the requirements to deposit theses on the Office of Scholarly Communication theses webpages.

UK Theses and Dissertations

Electronic copies of Ph.D. theses submitted at over 100 UK universities are obtainable from EThOS , a service set up to provide access to all theses from participating institutions. It achieves this by harvesting e-theses from Institutional Repositories and by digitising print theses as they are ordered by researchers using the system. Over 250,000 theses are already available in this way. Please note that it does not supply theses submitted at the universities of Cambridge or Oxford although they are listed on EThOS.

Registration with EThOS is not required to search for a thesis but is necessary to download or order one unless it is stored in the university repository rather than the British Library (in which case a link to the repository will be displayed). Many theses are available without charge on an Open Access basis but in all other cases, if you are requesting a thesis that has not yet been digitised you will be asked to meet the cost. Once a thesis has been digitised it is available for free download thereafter.

When you order a thesis it will either be immediately available for download or writing to hard copy or it will need to be digitised. If you order a thesis for digitisation, the system will manage the process and you will be informed when the thesis is available for download/preparation to hard copy.

See the Search results section of the  help page for full information on interpreting search results in EThOS.

EThOS is managed by the British Library and can be found at http://ethos.bl.uk . For more information see About EThOS .

World-wide (incl. UK) theses and dissertations

Electronic versions of non-UK theses may be available from the institution at which they were submitted, sometimes on an open access basis from the institutional repository. A good starting point for discovering freely available electronic theses and dissertations beyond the UK is the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) , which facilitates searching across institutions. Information can also usually be found on the library web pages of the relevant institution.

The DART Europe etheses portal lists several thousand full-text theses from a group of European universities.

The University Library subscribes to the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses  (PQDT) database which from August 31 2023 is accessed on the Web of Science platform.  To search this index select it from the Web of Science "Search in" drop-down list of databases (available on the Documents tab on WoS home page)

PQDT includes 2.4 million dissertation and theses citations, representing 700 leading academic institutions worldwide from 1861 to the present day. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full text coverage for older graduate works. Each dissertation published since July 1980 includes a 350-word abstract written by the author. Master's theses published since 1988 include 150-word abstracts.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The University Library only subscribes to the abstracting & indexing version of the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database and NOT the full text version.  A fee is payable for ordering a dissertation from this source.   To obtain the full text of a dissertation as a downloadable PDF you can submit your request via the University Library Inter-Library Loans department (see contact details below). NB this service is only available to full and current members of the University of Cambridge.

Alternatively you can pay yourself for the dissertation PDF on the PQDT platform. Link from Web of Science record display of any thesis to PQDT by clicking on "View Details on ProQuest".  On the "Preview" page you will see an option "Order a copy" top right.  This will allow you to order your own copy from ProQuest directly.

Dissertations and theses submitted at non-UK universities may also be requested on Inter-Library Loan through the Inter-Library Loans department (01223 333039 or 333080, [email protected] )

• Last Updated: Dec 20, 2023 9:47 AM
• URL: https://libguides.cam.ac.uk/theses

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EThOS: e-theses online service Open access EThOS: e-theses online service Open access

EThOS, provided by the British Library, is a free online service providing access to UK doctoral theses.

Access EThOS is an open access resource.

Content  EThOS, provided by the British Library, is a free online service providing access to UK doctoral theses. It does not cover MPhils or master's dissertations.

EThOS aims to provide a central listing of all doctoral theses awarded by UK higher education institutions, with the full text of as many theses as possible. 

The database includes more than 600,000 records. Around 4,000 law theses are covered, dating from the 1920s to the present day.

Searching  EThOS has basic and advanced search facilities. Searches can be limited to theses available for immediate download.

Advanced search allows users to search by author, title, awarding body, year of award and other criteria. Boolean connectors (AND, OR, AND NOT) can be selected from a drop-down menu

Downloading  Many theses are available for download; it is necessary to create a free account to do this. 

There is an option to request digitisation of a thesis if it is not yet available for download. Sometimes this is free, but sometimes there is a charge (see FAQs). 

Help A Help menu and an FAQ page are available.

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• Theses & dissertations
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OU theses and dissertations

Online theses.

Are available via Open Research Online .

Print theses

Search for OU theses in the Library Search . To see only print theses click 'In the Walton Hall library' and refine your results to resource type 'Thesis'.

OU staff and research students can  borrow a consultation copy of a thesis (if available). Please contact the Library helpdesk giving the author and title of the thesis.

UK theses and dissertations from EThOS

The Electronic Theses Online System (EThOS) offers free access to the full text of UK theses.

• EThOS offers a one stop online shop providing free access to UK theses
• EThOS digitizes theses on request into PDF format, this may require payment
• EThOS is managed by the British Library in partnership with a number of UK universities
• EThOS is open to all categories of library user

What does this mean to you as a library user?

When you need to access a PhD thesis from another UK based HE institution you should check EThOS to either download a thesis which has already been digitised or to request that a UK thesis be supplied to you.

• For all UK theses EThOS will be the first point of delivery. You can use the online ordering and tracking system direct from EThOS to manage your requests for UK PhD theses, including checking the status of your requests
• As readers you will deal directly with EThOS so will not need to fill in a document delivery request
• OU staff and research students will still be entitled to access non-UK based PhD theses by filling in a document delivery request
• In some cases where EThOS is unable to supply a UK thesis OU staff and research students will be able to access it by filling in a conventional document delivery request. The thesis will be supplied through direct loan
• The EThOS system is both faster and cheaper than the previous British Theses service which was based on microfilm
• The British Library no longer arranges interlibrary loans for UK PhD theses
• Interlibrary Loan procedures for other types of request from the British Library (articles and books for example) will remain the same

If you have any queries about using EThOS contact the Document Delivery Team ( [email protected] or the Library Helpdesk ).

Note 13/03/2024: The British Library is continuing to experience a major technology outage affecting its websites and other online systems, due to a Cyber attack. as a result access to ETHOS might not be possible until the issue is fixed. 

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Library Services

Here we explain how to access copies of research theses that UCL Library Services holds. There is also an increasing number of open access thesis repositories available online.

Theses held in UCL Library

Open access repositories containing the full text of selected research theses.

• Indexes of completed theses

Obtaining copies of research theses

• Open Access for Thesis: how to deposit

University of London theses

The Library holds a copy of most research degree theses completed by students registered at UCL and awarded by the UoL, including many from students at Schools and Institutes prior to merger with UCL. Theses are listed by author on the Library catalogue, Explore : they are shelved in our off-campus Store and may be retrieved for consultation (24-hour notice required) by completing the store request form or via the request link on Explore. Theses are not available for loan, either to individuals or via interlibrary loan.

Some UoL research degree theses submitted by UCL students in the areas of classical, Germanic, Latin American studies; history and law are not held: check the UoL School of Advanced Study catalogue for availability.

UCL started to award its own degrees to students registering from 2007/2008. Print copies of research theses are catalogued by author in Explore and shelved in Store; electronic versions are in many cases available on open access in UCL Discovery .

If you wish to access a thesis recorded in UCL Discovery for which the full text is subject to an access restriction or not present, it is best to contact the author directly to request a copy privately.  If this is not possible, please contact the UCL Open Access Team .

If a thesis is not available via UCL Discovery or EThOS (see below) then it might be possible to obtain a copy from our interlibrary loan service via your home university interlibrary loan department. Please contact your university library and ask them to enquire about this service with UCL's Interlibrary Loan service; e-mail [email protected] for more information.

The Library does not normally hold print copies of any theses in the following categories:

• MA, MSc, MRes, LLM theses.
• Diploma theses.
• Undergraduate dissertations.
• Theses submitted at other universities or colleges.

Further information is available in the Support for dissertations and research projects LibGuide .

A growing number of open access thesis repositories is becoming available including:

• ProQuest , holds many full text theses. You can search for dissertations and theses there.
• UCL Discovery , UCL's open access research repository, includes theses alongside other UCL publications. You can search for theses, or browse a list.
• EThOS , a database run by the British Library that aims to record all UK doctoral theses, with links to access an electronic version of the full text where available. The digitisation of theses that only exist in print form can often be requested, depending on the awarding institution and for a fee: UCL supports this process for UCL-held theses.
• The DART-Europe E-theses Portal , holds details of open access electronic theses stored in repositories across Europe.
• Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations , includes links to a number of international search tools and portals.

Video - Using PhD theses in research: EThOS 

YouTube Widget Placeholder http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8X8ai6xN-4

Indexes of completed theses (access available to members of UCL only)

Proquest dissertations & theses global (pqdt global).

PQDT Global contains over a million full-text dissertations and theses from 1861 onwards that are available for download in PDF format. The collection includes PQDT UK and Ireland content.

Many UK universities now decline to lend research theses. You may visit the awarding university or, increasingly, obtain an electronic version either from the university itself or from EThOS (see above).

Theses awarded by universities worldwide may be requested via UCL Library Services Interlending and Document Supply service . The normal charge for this service applies. Please note that theses are never available for loan: they must be consulted on Library premises only.

Open access for theses: how to deposit

Candidates for UCL research degrees are required to deposit an electronic copy of their final thesis in UCL's Research Publications Service (RPS), to be made open access in UCL's institutional repository, UCL Discovery . Theses are amongst the most highly-downloaded items in UCL Discovery . Making your thesis open access will mean that it is accessible worldwide, to anyone who wants to read it.

It is also possible, but not mandatory, to submit a print copy of your thesis to the Library for storage and preservation if you wish. We recommend submitting the print copy in cases where the electronic copy cannot be made openly available online in UCL Discovery, but you wish the print copy to be accessible to members of the Library.

Please refer to our guidance on how to deposit  for further information on the submission procedures.

A-Z Databases: EThOS: Welcome

Content, coverage & description.

EThOS is a UK wide repository of digitized doctoral theses. It provides full text access to 250,000 theses published in the UK as well as bibliographic records of non digitized theses. A quick and free  registration is required to access the full text content.  

• EThOS e-Theses Online Service This link opens in a new window The British Library digital repository for UK research theses offering a central access point to UK doctoral theses. The majority of universities in the UK are members. You can cross-search over 500,000 theses including those available for immediate download. more... less... Not Searchable via One Search. You must first register on an individual basis with Ethos in order to make requests through the Ethos website. The Ethos site provides further information.

When to use

EThOS is an excellent resource for finding highly specialised and original research. S tudents embarking on a doctoral programme may wish to see examples of successful theses in their own discipline and identify areas of research that have not already been covered.  

Video guide: Using Ethos to find UK theses

University of Kent (2019) Using Ethos to find UK theses.  28 August. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n_c3ZRC5tG0 (Accessed: 13 July 2021).

Basic search

Keep search terms simple, e.g. 'organisational culture', 'business ethics' , ' eosinophilic inflammation', ' diabetes management'. 

Full text availability is indicated by a green open padlock symbol next to the search results.  You can restrict the search results to full text only by checking the box  ' limit search to items available for immediate download' below the search bar.

Search results are listed in order of relevance. You can change the order of results to A to Z by author or year (most recent to oldest and vice versa) by using the 'sort by" option above the search results. 

Click the relevant search result to view the abstract and download the thesis (if applicable). The full text can be accessed via the 'Immediate download'   link when this is available. You will be prompted for the username and password you chose when you registered with EThOS. 

Advanced Search

The advanced search tool enables you to search for a specific thesis by author and title. Use  the drop-down menus next to the search boxes to select your desired search criteria. 

You can also combine search terms using the Boolean operators 'AND', 'OR', 'NOT' (drop-down menu to the left of the search boxes). Example:

'higher education' (box one) AND  'social inequality' (box two)  will instruct  the database to look for theses which contain both search terms in the thesis abstracts or titles. 

'social inequality' (box one) OR  'poverty' (box two) will instruct the database to search for each search term separately. 

'higher education' (box one) AND  'social inequality' (box two) OR  'poverty' (box three) will instruct the database to search for articles which contain the first search term 'higher education' and either the second 'social inequality' or the third 'poverty'. 

Try to keep your search terms simple especially when combining search terms.  EThOS is a highly specialised database and over complicating searches may lead to a zero result outcome. 

Help and Support

Library staff are available to help you to use all of our online databases and electronic journal services. 

Contact us at  [email protected]  or via the  Self Service Port al . 

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• Last Updated: Mar 24, 2022 1:40 PM
• URL: https://uws-uk.libguides.com/EThOS

Theses and dissertation: Finding a UK thesis

• Finding a Sussex thesis
• Finding a UK thesis
• Finding an international thesis
• Help and Support

The Electronic Theses Online System

The Electronic Theses Online System is a service from the British Library that provides online access to the full-text of UK doctoral theses. It contains over 380,000+ records of doctoral theses from UK Higher Education Institutions. Many of these have already been digitised and are available for immediate download.

Can I request UK theses from other universities from the Library?

You no longer request theses from other universities through Sussex University's Interlibrary Requests service - you can access them directly via EThOS.

Do I need to register?

You do not need to register to search the 380,000+ records in the EThOS database, but you will need to register if you would like to download a thesis.

Are immediate downloads available?

If the thesis in which you are interested has already been digitised, you will be able to download it immediately without charge. If the thesis you need has not yet been digitised, there will be a short delay whilst digitisation takes place. You will then be notified by EThOS when the thesis is ready to be downloaded. Once the thesis has been digitised it is then available for immediate download by any other user.

Are all theses digitised?

Some theses cannot be digitised for copyright reasons. If this is the case with the thesis you need, please inform the Interlibrary Requests team who will investigate whether a hard copy can be borrowed directly from the relevant university.

Does this service cost me anything?

On rare occasions you may be asked by EThOS to pay for the digitisation of a thesis. This is because, although the majority of institutions participating in EThOS have agreed to pay for the digitisation of their own theses on request, some institutions have not.

In such cases, the Library will pay the cost of digitisation provided that funding is available. Please contact the Research Support team on Tel: 01273 877941 (int 7941) or Email: [email protected] with the full details of your request.

image copyright: The British Library

Useful Links

Library Search

• Browse SRO theses Browse theses added to Sussex Research Online
• EThOS A service from the British Library that provides online access to the fulltext of UK doctoral theses. The EThOS database contains over 300,000+ records of doctoral theses from UK Higher Education Institutions.
• Copyright guide A practical guide on copyright issues in your thesis.
• << Previous: Finding a Sussex thesis
• Next: Finding an international thesis >>
• Last Updated: Feb 9, 2022 1:24 PM
• URL: https://guides.lib.sussex.ac.uk/theses

Theses and Dissertations: UK PhD Theses

• UK PhD Theses
• Overseas PhD Theses
• BU Theses & Dissertations This link opens in a new window

For Library Enquiries: tel. +44 (0) 1202 965959 Available 9am - 5pm Mon to Fri

For IT Support: tel. +44 (0) 1202 965515 Available 24/7

Using UK PhD Theses in EThOS

Obtaining Theses

• Thesis and Dissertation databases can be accessed via this BU Library webpage .
• If a thesis is not available full text online then it may be possible to obtain via the Inter-Library Loan service . The clarity of your request is enhanced if you attach a printout of the source details e.g. a record from one of the databases .
• Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) is the British Library service which provides full text open access to digital copies of UK PhD theses. The EThOS database contains records of over 250,000 UK theses, with the added functionality of being able to request access to digital copies of selected theses that have not already been digitised.
• Personal registration on EThOS is required to be able to download theses. Bournemouth University is an Open Access Sponsor of EThOS, so all BU theses are indexed.
• Theses which are already available to download have a pdf attached to the record. For those theses that do not have a pdf attached, you should select the record to check Availability of Full Text – there are 3 possible scenarios:
• The home institution will pay the digitisation cost and access will be free.
• The home institution will digitise the thesis, but you will be charged.  In these cases you should consult your supervisor as to how important the thesis is to your research and consider requesting payment via the Inter-Library Request Service.
• The thesis is not available via EThOS service. Please contact the current institution's library directly if you wish to view the thesis.

Doing a thesis at BU

This guide is to help with searching for theses from other institutions.

If you are doing a thesis at BU and want guidance to help with writing and completing your research see our PGR Guide

Subject Guide

• Next: Overseas PhD Theses >>
• Last Updated: Oct 18, 2023 11:46 AM
• URL: https://libguides.bournemouth.ac.uk/theses-dissertations

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How do I find a Cambridge thesis?

Ph.D., M.Litt., M.Sc., and Divinity M.Phil. theses approved after 1970 are catalogued in iDiscover, as are M.D. and M.Chir. theses approved after May 2006. Earlier theses are listed in a card catalogue in the Manuscripts Reading Room and are gradually being added to iDiscover.

Since 1 October 2017, all PhD theses are being deposited in electronic form to the University repository  Apollo . Many earlier theses are also in the repository, but if they are not yet in digital form it is possible to request access to these theses. There is more information on how to request a copy of a printed thesis further down this page.

Gaining access to electronic copies of a thesis

The author of a given thesis in Apollo can choose whether their thesis is available to be downloaded, available on request or unavailable. While many of the theses in Apollo are openly available for download, some theses in the repository are not open access because they have either been embargoed by the author or because they are unable to be made openly available for copyright or other reasons.

Requesting a copy of a printed thesis

Researchers can order a copy of an unpublished thesis which was deposited in print form through the Library’s  Digital Content Unit  via the  image request form . Copies of theses may be provided to researchers in accordance with the  law  and in a manner that is common across UK libraries.The law allows us to provide whole copies of unpublished theses to individuals as long as they sign a declaration saying that it is for non-commercial research or private study. The agreement used for access to theses at Cambridge has been drafted using the guidance by the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP).

Theses are not available for borrowing or inter library loan. The copyright of theses remains with the author. The law does not allow us to provide a copy for inclusion in a general library collection or for wider distribution beyond the individual receiving the copy, without the explicit permission of the author or copyright holder. Where someone approaches us asking for a copy for their library or wider distribution, they must obtain the explicit permission of the author or copyright owner.

Please note any periods of access restriction requested by the author apply to both electronic and print copies.

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• Durham e-Theses

Durham e-Theses contains the full-text of Durham University Higher Degree theses. This includes our extensive collection of PhD, MPHIL and Research Masters dissertations from 1899 onwards, which have been digitised by the library.

If your thesis was awarded prior to 1 October 2009 and you do not wish to have your research made available in this way, please follow the general procedures outlined in the Take-down policy and contact us with the reasons for this as soon as possible.

The content is freely available for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-profit purposes.

Simple and Advanced

• Latest additions

Theses added in the past 7 days.

Postgraduate Research Students

Login and enter brief details of your thesis, then:

Upload a single PDF of the passed version of your thesis full-text. Instructions are in the Deposit Guide and in this short video .

Full details of the thesis submission process are on the Academic Support Office website.

Quick links

• Browse by year
• Browse by department
• Deposit thesis
• Usage statistics

Prospective students

• International students
• Research degrees
• Deposit Guide

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• The University of Manchester Library
• Search theses

Postgraduate research theses contain ‘a wealth of data… which can shed light on very interesting areas’ (The British Library, 2014).

You can find theses submitted by University of Manchester postgraduate research students from the late 19th Century to the present day using the Library Search box above. Or try the Advanced Search for more options (select 'Theses' from the drop-down list for ‘Material type’).

Follow the links below for more information about accessing theses submitted by Manchester researchers, as well as theses from authors all over the world.

Access to British Library EThOS - March 2024

Access to British Library EThOS  is currently unavailable due to a major technical outage affecting several of their online services.

View news and updates on the British Library website

Manchester eTheses

Doctoral theses submitted from 2010 onwards which are currently Open Access are available to view via the University’s Research Explorer.

eTheses submission

Supporting Postgraduate Research Students, Supervisors and Administrators with the submission of electronic theses.

Search ProQuest for digitised pre-2010 Manchester theses, as well as over four million theses and dissertations from institutions around the world.

Theses Library Guide

Consult our Theses Library Guide for guidance on how to locate and access theses from UK and International institutions.

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Welcome to White Rose eTheses Online

White rose etheses online.

Welcome to White Rose eTheses Online, a shared repository of electronic theses from the University of Leeds, the University of Sheffield and the University of York.

Student from the University of Leeds, Sheffield or York? Need to upload your thesis? Start by creating an account , or login to your account

If you are unsure if this is the right place for you, check the FAQs .

Recent additions for Leeds , Sheffield , York or all recent additions .

What is White Rose eTheses Online?

This repository gives access to theses awarded by the Universities of Leeds, Sheffield and York. The available repository content can be accessed for free, without the need to log on or create an account, as per the instructions of the depositing author. We also make the content available through aggregator sites via harvesting mechanisms.

Theses: UK Theses

• Manchester Theses
• Worldwide theses

Key UK dissertation and theses resource

• ProQuest dissertations & theses global ProQuest Dissertations and Theses: Global (PQDTGlobal) is the world's most comprehensive collection of full-text dissertations and theses. As the official digital dissertations archive for the Library of Congress and as the database of record for graduate research, PQDTGlobal includes millions of searchable citations to dissertations and theses from 1861 to the present day together with over a million full-text dissertations that are available for download in PDF format. Over 2.1 million titles are available for purchase as printed copies. The database offers full text for most of the dissertations added since 1997 and strong retrospective full-text coverage for older graduate works. It also includes PQDT UK & Ireland content.

Finding and accessing UK theses

• Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS) EThOS is the UK’s national thesis service which aims to maximise the visibility and availability of the UK’s doctoral research theses. EThOS aims to provide a national aggregated record of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions and free access to the full text of as many theses as possible for use by all researchers. There are approximately 440,000 records relating to theses awarded by over 120 institutions of which around 160,000 are available as full text. Requests for many of the remainder can be ordered for scanning through the EThOS digitisation-on-demand facility. You can download digitised PhD thesis from across the UK for free once you have registered on the website. Records are held for all UK PhD-awarding institutions, but EThOS does not yet hold all records for all institutions. This is constantly updated as more theses including University of Manchester outputs from March 2013 are submitted solely in electronic form.

• Web of Science Conference Proceedings via Web of Science: Index to published proceedings for international conferences, symposia, seminars, colloquia, workshops and conventions across a wide range of disciplines. Proceedings relating to Business and Management can be found in the Social Sciences Proceedings on the Institute for Scientific Information Web of Science tab.

Institutional repositories

Most major research universities use institutional repositories to store records of their scholarly work. Institutional repositories are sometimes also used to disseminate research. They are valuable to researchers for various reasons:

• Free access to details of research carried out in your area.
• Free access to details of research carried out by particular researchers.
• Research papers may be available free of charge.
• Content can be found by internet search engines such as Google.

Pure  is our institutional repository. For other repositories search the Directory of Open Access Repositories .

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• Last Updated: Oct 7, 2022 3:07 PM
• URL: https://subjects.library.manchester.ac.uk/theses

Oxford theses

The Bodleian Libraries’ thesis collection holds every DPhil thesis deposited at the University of Oxford since the degree began in its present form in 1917. Our oldest theses date from the early 1920s. We also have substantial holdings of MLitt theses, for which deposit became compulsory in 1953, and MPhil theses.

Since 2007 it has been a mandatory requirement for students to deposit an electronic copy of their DPhil thesis in the Oxford University Research Archive (ORA) , in addition to the deposit of a paper copy – the copy of record. Since the COVID pandemic, the requirement of a paper copy has been removed and the ORA copy has become the copy of record. Hardcopy theses are now only deposited under exceptional circumstances. 

ORA provides full-text PDF copies of most recent DPhil theses, and some earlier BLitt/MLitt theses. Find out more about Oxford Digital Theses, and depositing with ORA .

Finding Oxford theses

The following theses are catalogued on SOLO (the University libraries’ resource discovery tool) :

• DPhil and BLitt and MLitt theses
• BPhil and MPhil theses 
• Science theses

SOLO collates search results from several sources.

How to search for Oxford theses on SOLO

To search for theses in the Oxford collections on SOLO :

• navigate to the SOLO homepage
• click on the 'Advanced Search' button
• click the 'Material Type' menu and choose the 'Dissertations' option
• type in the title or author of the thesis you are looking for and click the 'Search' button.

Also try an “Any field” search for “Thesis Oxford” along with the author’s name under “creator” and any further “Any field” keywords such as department or subject. 

Searching by shelfmarks

If you are searching using the shelfmark, please make sure you include the dots in your search (e.g. D.Phil.). Records will not be returned if they are left out.

Oxford University Research Archive (ORA)

ORA was established in 2007 as a permanent and secure online archive of research produced by members of the University of Oxford. It is now mandatory for students completing a research degree at the University to deposit an electronic copy of their thesis in this archive. 

Authors can select immediate release on ORA, or apply a 1-year or 3-year embargo period. The embargo period would enable them to publish all or part of their research elsewhere if they wish. 

Theses held in ORA are searchable via  SOLO , as well as external services such as EThOS and Google Scholar. For more information, visit the Oxford digital theses guide , and see below for guidance on searching in ORA.

Search for Oxford theses on ORA

Type your keywords (title, name) into the main search box, and use quotes (“) to search for an exact phrase.

Refine your search results using the drop-downs on the left-hand side. These include:

• item type (thesis, journal article, book section, etc.)
• thesis type (DPhil, MSc, MLitt, etc.)
• subject area (History, Economics, Biochemistry, etc.)
• item date (as a range)
• file availability (whether a full text is available to download or not)

You can also increase the number of search results shown per page, and sort by relevance, date and file availability. You can select and export records to csv or email. 

Select hyperlinked text within the record details, such as “More by this author”, to run a secondary search on an author’s name. You can also select a hyperlinked keyword or subject. 

Other catalogues

Card catalogue  .

The Rare Books department of the Weston Library keeps an author card index of Oxford theses. This includes all non-scientific theses deposited between 1922 and 2016. Please ask Weston Library staff for assistance.

ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

You can use ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global  to find bibliographic details of Oxford theses not listed on SOLO. Ask staff in the Weston Library’s Charles Wendall David Reading Room for help finding these theses. 

Search for Oxford theses on ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global

Basic search.

The default Basic search page allows for general keyword searches across all indexes using "and", "and not", "and or" to link the keywords as appropriate. Click on the More Search Options tab for specific title, author, subject and institution (school) searches, and to browse indexes of authors, institutions and subjects. These indexes allow you to add the word or phrase recognised by the database to your search (ie University of Oxford (United Kingdom), not Oxford University).

Advanced search

The Advanced search tab (at the top of the page) enables keyword searching in specific indexes, including author, title, institution, department, adviser and language. If you are unsure of the exact details of thesis, you can use the search boxes on this page to find it by combining the key information you do have.

Search tools

In both the Basic and Advanced search pages you can also limit the search by date by using the boxes at the bottom. Use the Search Tools advice in both the Basic and Advanced pages to undertake more complex and specific searches. Within the list of results, once you have found the record that you are interested in, you can click on the link to obtain a full citation and abstract. You can use the back button on your browser to return to your list of citations.

The Browse search tab allows you to search by subject or by location (ie institution). These are given in an alphabetical list. You can click on a top-level subject to show subdivisions of the subject. You can click on a country location to show lists of institutions in that country. At each level, you can click on View Documents to show lists of individual theses for that subject division or from that location.

In Browse search, locations and subject divisions are automatically added to a basic search at the bottom of the page. You can search within a subject or location by title, author, institution, subject, date etc, by clicking on Refine Search at the top of the page or More Search Options at the bottom of the page.

Where are physical Oxford theses held?

The Bodleian Libraries hold all doctoral theses and most postgraduate (non-doctoral) theses for which a deposit requirement is stipulated by the University:

• DPhil (doctoral) theses (1922 – 2021)
• Bachelor of Divinity (BD) theses
• BLitt/MLitt theses (Michaelmas Term 1953 – 2021)
• BPhil and MPhil theses (Michaelmas Term 1977 – 2021)

Most Oxford theses are held in Bodleian Offsite Storage. Some theses are available in the libraries; these are listed below.

Law Library

Theses submitted to the Faculty of Law are held at the Bodleian Law Library .

Vere Harmsworth Library

Theses on the United States are held at the Vere Harmsworth Library .

Social Science Library

The Social Science Library holds dissertations and theses selected by the departments it supports. 

The list of departments and further information are available in the Dissertations and Theses section of the SSL webpages. 

Locations for Anthropology and Archaeology theses

The Balfour Library holds theses for the MPhil in Material and Visual Anthropology and some older theses in Prehistoric Archaeology.

The Art, Archaeology and Ancient World Library holds theses for MPhil in Classical Archaeology and MPhil in European Archaeology.

Ordering Oxford theses

Theses held in Bodleian Offsite Storage are consulted in the Weston Library. The preferred location is the Charles Wendell David Reading Room ; they can also be ordered to the Sir Charles Mackerras Reading Room .

Find out more about requesting a digitised copy, copyright restrictions and copying from Oxford theses .

Schools & departments

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Open Content

This guide brings together information about Open Access Resources and Open Educational Resources. It aims to make Open Access resources easier to find and use for study, teaching and research.

Finding open Theses and Dissertations

University of edinburgh and uk theses.

Edinburgh Research Archive - Full text electronic copies of most University of Edinburgh PhD theses can be found online in the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA). The collection comprises 23,500 items and includes MD theses from the 1700s through to PhDs recently awarded in 2020.

EThoS: e-theses online service - This service from the British Library aims to provide a national aggregated record of all doctoral theses awarded by UK Higher Education institutions, and free access to the full text of as many theses as possible for use by researchers.

Google Scholar Search

If you know the details of the thesis you wish to consult then an effective way to find the full text is via  Google Scholar. Search for the full title in quotes, followed by the author last name, and/or date if known. 

International theses

DART-Europe is a searchable database of electronic research theses held in European repositories. It covers around 586 Universities in 29 European countries.

EBSCO Open Dissertations   is a free database with records for more than 1.4 million electronic theses and dissertations from more than 320 universities around the world. 

Global ETD Search  from the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (NDLTD) contains around 6 million records, the majority of which are open, but some may not be publicly available.

Open Access Theses & Dissertations  currently indexes around 5 million open access theses and dissertations from 1100 institutions worldwide.

Making your thesis open access

Theses and dissertations from the University of Edinburgh are published online in the Edinburgh Research Archive  (ERA). In 2020, UoE theses were downloaded 829,804 times from ERA (source IRUS-UK download report).  The University has an expectation that a PhD thesis is a document available for public consultation. As such, unless a legitimate reason for restricting access to the thesis exists, all PhD theses will be made publicly available on the internet. Masters dissertations are not routinely made available online, but exceptional dissertations can be made open access.

PhD and other doctoral theses

Masters dissertations.

Only Masters Dissertations from the School of Philosophy, Psychology & Language Sciences and the School of Geosciences are routinely deposited in the Edinburgh Research Archive (ERA). If you are from a different School you can make your master dissertation open access by depositing in ERA. You can do this by logging in with your EASE credentials, then selecting your Schools Thesis & Dissertation Collection and follow the prompts for submitting a new item to the collection.

Open Access Theses and Dissertations

Thursday, April 18, 8:20am (EDT): Searching is temporarily offline. We apologize for the inconvenience and are working to bring searching back up as quickly as possible.

Advanced research and scholarship. Theses and dissertations, free to find, free to use.

Advanced search options

Browse by author name (“Author name starts with…”).

Find ETDs with:

Written in any language English Portuguese French German Spanish Swedish Lithuanian Dutch Italian Chinese Finnish Greek Published in any country US or Canada Argentina Australia Austria Belgium Bolivia Brazil Canada Chile China Colombia Czech Republic Denmark Estonia Finland France Germany Greece Hong Kong Hungary Iceland India Indonesia Ireland Italy Japan Latvia Lithuania Malaysia Mexico Netherlands New Zealand Norway Peru Portugal Russia Singapore South Africa South Korea Spain Sweden Switzerland Taiwan Thailand UK US Earliest date Latest date

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October 3, 2022. OATD is dealing with a number of misbehaved crawlers and robots, and is currently taking some steps to minimize their impact on the system. This may require you to click through some security screen. Our apologies for any inconvenience.

Recent Additions

See all of this week’s new additions.

About OATD.org

OATD.org aims to be the best possible resource for finding open access graduate theses and dissertations published around the world. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from over 1100 colleges, universities, and research institutions . OATD currently indexes 7,254,624 theses and dissertations.

About OATD (our FAQ) .

Visual OATD.org

We’re happy to present several data visualizations to give an overall sense of the OATD.org collection by county of publication, language, and field of study.

You may also want to consult these sites to search for other theses:

• Google Scholar
• NDLTD , the Networked Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations. NDLTD provides information and a search engine for electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs), whether they are open access or not.
• Proquest Theses and Dissertations (PQDT), a database of dissertations and theses, whether they were published electronically or in print, and mostly available for purchase. Access to PQDT may be limited; consult your local library for access information.

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EBSCO Open Dissertations

EBSCO Open Dissertations makes electronic theses and dissertations (ETDs) more accessible to researchers worldwide. The free portal is designed to benefit universities and their students and make ETDs more discoverable. 

Increasing Discovery & Usage of ETD Research

EBSCO Open Dissertations is a collaboration between EBSCO and BiblioLabs to increase traffic and discoverability of ETD research. You can join the movement and add your theses and dissertations to the database, making them freely available to researchers everywhere while increasing traffic to your institutional repository. 

EBSCO Open Dissertations extends the work started in 2014, when EBSCO and the H.W. Wilson Foundation created American Doctoral Dissertations which contained indexing from the H.W. Wilson print publication, Doctoral Dissertations Accepted by American Universities, 1933-1955. In 2015, the H.W. Wilson Foundation agreed to support the expansion of the scope of the American Doctoral Dissertations database to include records for dissertations and theses from 1955 to the present.

How Does EBSCO Open Dissertations Work?

Your ETD metadata is harvested via OAI and integrated into EBSCO’s platform, where pointers send traffic to your IR.

EBSCO integrates this data into their current subscriber environments and makes the data available on the open web via opendissertations.org .

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