Deposit your dissertation (thesis) for public access

Guidance on depositing your final dissertation (thesis) to the library for public access, including what documents are required.

When to deposit your thesis

If you have no remaining minor errors, you have 28 days from the notification of your award to upload the final version of your dissertation. 

If you have remaining minor errors, you have 28 days from receiving confirmation that your corrections are satisfactory to upload the final version of your dissertation. 

A deposit is the act of creating a record in Pure, including information about your degree and the relevant documents.

In some circumstances, a deferral (embargo) or redactions to the public version of the dissertation may be appropriate. Refer to the guidance on deferred access for more information. But a deposit by the set deadline is always required.

What documents are required

You are required to deposit two documents (your thesis and your Thesis deposit form (Office document, 241kB)) through Pure. You will also need to complete a depositor declaration in Pure.

Follow the deposit instructions to deposit your thesis in Pure. Your dissertation (or published work and commentary) will be processed within six weeks and appear in the University of Bristol Research Portal, subject to any initial embargo or longer deferral which has been agreed.

Degree certificates will not be issued until the thesis and thesis deposit form have been deposited in Pure. Your certificate will be available after the degree has been conferred at graduation. The Administration and Records Team will verify that your thesis has been deposited before the certificate is released.

  1. Thesis

A PDF version of your final dissertation (or published work and commentary). This includes all the corrections required by the examiners.

Your thesis file should be titled: Final_Copy_[year_month_day]_[your surname_your initials]_PhD.

You must not include any:

  • additional text that has not been approved by your examiners except for typographical errors
  • personal data, such as signatures, email addresses, etc. in the preliminary pages, including your student number in the file name.

You may need to produce a redacted version if:

  • your thesis includes personal data in the body of the thesis or annexed documents; and/or 
  • your thesis includes third party copyrighted material which you do not have permission to include in the public version.  

Refer to the guidance on deferred access for more information on redactions or deferrals (embargoes).

Refer to the deposit instructions for information on creating a record in Pure, formatting your electronic deposit, and what to do in cases where your thesis or related research materials are not available in a suitable digital format.

You must always deposit the unredacted version and, if applicable, the redacted version of your thesis in Pure, even if an initial embargo or longer deferral will apply. If your approved deferral requires deposit in a secure repository (the Research Data Storage Facility, RDSF), you will receive explicit instructions from the Postgraduate Research Examinations team. 

  1. Thesis deposit form

The Thesis deposit form (Office document, 241kB) must be completed and included as a separate file in your Pure record.

Refer to the guidance on deferred access before completing Section 1 of the form. It provides important information on when a deferral or substantial redactions may be appropriate.  

Note: In most cases, an embargo isn’t necessary, but students can choose to apply an initial 12-month deferral (embargo). More substantial redactions or a longer deferral require University approval. The guidance includes instructions on how to request this.  

  1. Depositor declaration

The depositor declaration is an agreement you complete as part of the process of depositing your thesis in Pure. A reference copy of this agreement is available in the deposit instructions. 

Contact information

If you have any questions about the thesis deposit process, email lib-research-support@bristol.ac.uk or call +44 (0)117 455 8124.