Find a UK thesis from another institution

To find a UK thesis from another institution that is not Edinburgh Napier University, search EThOS - the British Library Electronic Theses Online Service, 

You can find a large number of theses available for free download or you can ask participating institutions to digitise theses.

Please note: you must register individually (not with your institutional login) and log in before you can download or request theses.

Access to EThOS (updated 22 November 2023)

The British Library was subject to a cyber incident over the weekend of 28 and 29 October and most of their systems have been offline since then. This outage includes British Library EThOS

Currently we have no further information about the likely duration of these issues.

 

 

 
 

Getting started

Go to the  British Library's EThOS website, click the Login/Register button at the top of the screen and fill in your details to register. The next time you visit, login with your email address and chosen password. 
Go to EThOS
Student sitting at a laptop studying
 

Basic search

  • Enter your keywords in the search box. To find a phrase or words together in a certain order, add quotation marks e.g. 'academic skills'.
  • Click 'Limit search to items available for immediate download' if you want to search for theses that are already available online.
  • If you select the 'Include restricted or embargoed items' option, you might see limited details about a thesis but wont be able to download the full text.
  • Click the search button. 

 

Advanced search

For a very specific search, select the Advanced Search option. Type a word or phrase into each search box. More than one word in a box will usually be searched for as a phrase. 

To combine words:

 If you want to:  Use:  Example:
 Find both words  AND  engineer AND training
 Find either word:  OR  language OR speech
 Find one word but not the other:  AND NOT  beowulf AND NOT computing

 

Select the drop-down lists on the right to search in a particular field e.g. search for Hope as an author rather than as a word in the title.

 

Your results

Icon Result 
 EThOS immediate download icon  You can download this thesis immediately for free.
 EThOS scan icon  This thesis can be scanned by the institution for a fee or there may be a charge.
 EThOS restricted access icon  Full text unavailable from EThOS. Restricted access or embargoed. 

 

 
 

How to access a thesis

Downloading a thesis

  • Click on the thesis title.
  • In the Availability of Full Text section, click the Download button.
  • You can now see the Download Manager page. View and agree to the terms and conditions.
  • Select the thesis you want and click the Download button which then appears.
  • Save the file. 

Scan from print

  • If the thesis is not available for immediate download, click the 'Order from print (no fee applies)' button. 
  • If the pop-up box says 'To be digitised from the paper original', and the total cost is £0.00, you can click 'Add to basket' and have the thesis digitised at no cost to you.
  • If there is a 'Check scan fee and order a copy' button, click to see the estimated cost and turnaround time on the order page.

Restricted access or embargoed

Click on the thesis title and in the Availability of Full Text section you may see the embargo and date. There may be a link to the institutional repository with details on whether it's possible to request permission to view the thesis. 
 
 

Can't find/access the thesis for free?

Contact your Subject Librarian for further help. Send the full details of the thesis, including a link to the thesis details on EThOS if available.

 

Other repositories

Registry of Open Access Repositories (ROAR): tracks the growth of open access repositories.