Printed theses held in Cambridge
Copies of all postgraduate theses written by students at the University of Cambridge must be deposited in Cambridge University Library. All theses post-1970 - and some older ones - are available online; we therefore recommend searching for them on iDiscover by author or keyword. For pre-1970 theses there is a card catalogue in the Manuscripts Reading Room. More information about accessing printed theses can be found on the University Library's website and on the Open Research site's 'Find a Cambridge thesis' page.
Electronic Cambridge theses
From 1 October 2017 all PhD students are required to deposit both a hard copy and an electronic copy of their thesis to the University Library. Find out more on how to access Cambridge electronic theses and how to deposit yours if you are a Cambridge PhD student, on the Theses section of the Open Research website.
UK theses, electronic and in print
You may need to consult a thesis published by another university in the UK. For information on how to access these via the University Library, see their Inter-Library Loans website.
The British Library also has a Electronic Theses Online Service (EThOS). [Please note that this service is currently unavailable following the cyber attack on the British Library in 2023. It is expected to be restored in late 2025 at the earliest.]
International theses, electronic and in print
Try some of the "Related links" on the right hand side of this page to locate national and international theses, either in digital or print format. Many universities around the world now require their Ph.D. or Masters students to provide their theses in electronic format, and to deposit them on their institutional repositories so that they can subsequently be downloaded by everyone for free. Try finding the website for the university that published the thesis that you are interested in and then search for "theses" or "Electronic Theses and Dissertations" or "ETDs" - or try a Google search using the same search terms and the name of the university.
ProQuest Dissertations and Theses A&I is a comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world, dating back to 1743. Access for members of the University of Cambridge is to the abstracts only but it is a good source for finding out the bibliographic details of theses.
