Library Research Support: Your Thesis

Copyright and your thesis

Durham University's Open Access Policy requires that all Durham theses (with a few exceptions in extreme cases) will be required to be made open access; freely available to all with an internet connection.

Whilst authors of doctoral and masters theses may benefit from some exemptions to copyright for the purpose of examination, it is important that the copy of the thesis made available via Durham e-Theses complies with all copyright requirements - in particular where you have included third party copyright material within your thesis (photographs, maps, site-plans).

When depositing, you can choose from a range of licences (including Creative Commons licences, which offer options clearly indicating what uses can be made of your thesis, and which support researchers who may be commercially funded) and copyright statements to deposit the work under.

Further information can be found at: Durham University Copyright Officer Support pages

Publishing your thesis

Aiming to develop the research presented in your thesis for publication, either in one or more journal articles or as a monograph, is something you may wish to consider as a means to raise the profile of your work, or may be a common "next step" on the academic career path in your discipline.

You should aim to discuss your aspirations and plans with your supervisor or department in the first instance, but we have provided some additional questions you should think about on this page.

Questions to consider

These are a few questions you should consider if you are thinking of publishing part or all of your thesis.

1. Do you want to publish your thesis as a monograph, or would this have greater reach as one (or more likely, several) journal articles?
   • be aware of disciplinary differences and speak with your supervisor and examiners for advice
   • a monograph can take several years to be published, but may be the expected norm for a career in your academic discipline.
   • it may be preferable to have a number of strong peer-reviewed journal articles on your CV however, when applying for jobs.
   • some publishers may support publication of a chapter as an article as a precursor for rewriting for publication as a monograph, where this might raise the profile of the author or the research - but this should be discussed with the publisher as consideration of prior publication may vary.
      
2. Do you own the copyright to all the content in your thesis?
   • if not (for example, third party copyright images, maps, diagrams) you may not be able to include these in a published format with out seeking permission or a licence to publish from the rights holders.
      
3. How much extra work will this require, and how will you balance that against other commitments (finding a job, postdoctoral research, teaching, family)
   • this may impact upon your choice of publication format
   • it is very rare that a publisher well accept a thesis for publication as a monograph without substantial adaptation
   • your thesis was written for examination, essentially to persuade three examiners (who are likely to be experts int he relevant field) of its unique contribution to research and its scholarly credentials
   • a monograph being published by a commercial publisher will need to demonstrate an appeal to a wider audience with different levels of expertise, and offer commercial potential for the publisher in most cases.
      
4. If you do need to adapt or re-work your thesis, can you still access and re-use the data collected or generated from your doctoral research?
   • For further guidance on good practice in research data management, see the University's Research Data Management pages.
      
5. How will access to your thesis impact upon any discussions with a publisher?
   • Durham University's Open Access policy expects your thesis to meet the requirements of the University's Open Access Policy.
   • If your doctoral research was funded, the research funder may require you to make your thesis accessible.
   • If your thesis will be accessible prior to any publication date of content from your thesis, you should make sure your publisher is aware of this and check their policies around theses and pre-publication. See the 'Publishers and Open Access Theses' tab for further information.
      
6. You may be approached by a publisher who indicates they are interested in publishing your research.
   • Check any agreement or contract a publisher offers you.
   • Check the credentials and reputation of the publisher (see our guidance on where to publish your research for further information).
   • Make sure that publication is in your best interests.
   • Be careful about restricting your own future use of the content.

Publishers and open access theses

Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE)

Many publishers are members of COPE, including Sage, Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Wiley, Taylor & Francis, Elsevier and Royal Society Publishing. COPE's policies on Intellectual Property for members to adhere to states that:

COPE's position on publishing materials from theses can be found on their webpage and includes:

Examples of Publisher approaches to open access theses

EMERALD

“My thesis is deposited in my publicly accessible university repository – can I still submit a paper based on my thesis to an Emerald journal?”

Yes, you can. Please submit your paper in the usual way but declare the existence of the uploaded thesis to the Editor of the journal. If the Editor wished to consider the paper further, the paper would go through our standard anonymised peer-review process.

This and other questions/answers can be found at Prior publication – preprints, conference papers & theses | Emerald Publishing (October 2025)

PALGRAVE MACMILLAN

"Palgrave Macmillan will consider submissions containing material that has previously formed part of a PhD or other academic thesis including those that have been made publicly available according to the requirements of the institution awarding the qualification. Prospective authors should bear in mind that every PhD thesis will need to undergo rigorous revision in order to be published as a monograph with our press."

Palgrave Macmillan guidance (Sep 2020)

SAGE PUBLISHING

"Most dissertations and theses posted in institutional archives - Excerpts or material from your dissertation that have not been through peer review will generally be eligible for publication. However, if the excerpt from the dissertation included in your manuscript is the same or substantially the same as any previously published work, the editor may determine that it is not suitable for publication in the journal." 

Sage policy on prior publication (October 2025)

WILEY PUBLISHING (INCLUDING BLACKWELL)

"The following types of “prior publication” do not present cause for concerns about duplicate or redundant publication:

• Abstracts and posters presented during sessions at conferences.
• Results presented at meetings (for example, to inform investigators or participants about findings).
• Results in databases and clinical trials registries (data without interpretation, discussion, context or conclusions in the form of tables and text to describe data/ information).
• Dissertations and theses in university archives.

Wiley Best Practice Guidelines on Publishing Ethics (July 2018)

Durham e-Theses

PhD students are required to deposit a PDF of their thesis in Durham e-Theses, the University's open access e-theses repository. Durham e-Theses contains:

• the full-text of Durham University Higher Degree theses passed after 1 October 2009
• an extensive collection of PhD, MPhil and Research Masters dissertations from 1899 onwards.

Theses in Durham e-Theses are available alongside other UK theses through the British Library's eThos service, the open access aggregator service Core.ac.uk and other services.

Embargoes and restricting access to your thesis

Should you have reason to place an embargo on your thesis in Durham e-Theses, please download, complete and email the Restricting Access to your Thesis form to the Graduate School at pg.admin@durham.ac.uk. Your request must be authorised by both your primary Supervisor and Departmental Director of Postgraduate Research.

Full guidance can be found on here or can be downloaded as a pdf as below.