From March 2020 all PhD theses received by the Library are in electronic format. These are listed on the Library catalogue and the University's institutional repository, CentAUR. Prior to this the Library received a print copy of all theses accepted for the degrees of PhD and MPhil. There is also some online availability of earlier theses. Print only theses may be digitised on request via British Library's EThOS service (fees apply).
Masters dissertations are not held by the Library. They can usually be consulted in the relevant University school or department.
All PhD and MPhil theses received by the Library in print or electronically are included in the Library catalogue. Theses received since 1979 have full entries on the Enterprise catalogue. Theses received prior to 1979 have a brief entry (author, title, department and year) on Enterprise. There are links to any electronic versions in the University's institutional repository, CentAUR, from the catalogue entry for the title.
Use the search box below to search for topic and when viewing your results limit them to the Format 'Thesis'.
You can also search for theses produced by a specific School/Department searching for the department name (for example, University of Reading Chemistry) and then limiting your results to the Format 'Thesis'. Please note that there have been a large number of name changes for Schools/Departments, so you might need to try several searches to find all possible entries.
Search the University's institutional repository, CentAUR, to find PhD theses submitted since 2015. Note that some theses might not be available to read online if they have an embargo applied.
Some older University of Reading theses have been digitised and made available via the British Library EThOS Service.
CentAUR (Central Archive at the University of Reading) is the University of Reading's institutional repository for research publications and equivalent research outputs.
References for British PhD theses. Includes some full-text, and the ability to request theses for scanning where not already available (a cost might apply).
No password required, although you need to register with the service to order a thesis - Find out about ordering a British thesis via EThOS
Theses are kept on Closed Access and have to be collected for you. The most recent ones are in the University Library, older ones are kept in our Off-site Store. Most theses can be consulted within the Library - they cannot be borrowed. A few theses are not available for consultation, and these are marked as "restricted". Full details of the duration of such restrictions can be found on the catalogue.
Request a thesis by filling in the online form on Enterprise - when viewing the full details of the thesis on the catalogue click on the 'Request Closed Access or Store Items' link on the right-hand side of the screen. See this page for more detailed guidance: