Resources to write your thesis

INFORMATION RESOURCES TO WRITE THE THESIS

A thesis should be an original, new and rigorous work and it should build on prior knowledge in the discipline that it covers.

The doctoral thesis shows that you have acquired the necessary skills and abilities to perform high-quality scientific research.

If you are completing your doctoral thesis, it is essential that you are familiar with the most prominent papers presented in your field of research, both in your university and in other national and international academic and research centres.

The Library provides you with specific tools to search for and find doctoral theses, research aptitude papers and academic papers. As well as searching in specialised databases and information portals we recommend searching in:

Thesis repositories and databases:

  • Teseo: The Universities Council’s database that contains bibliographic references for every thesis submitted nationwide since 1976, often providing them in a digital format.
  • Tesis doctorales en red (Online doctoral thesis): it is a cooperative repository that contains doctoral theses read at universities in Catalonia and other autonomous communities, in a digital format. The project was developed by the Catalonian Consortium of University Libraries and the Catalonian Supercomputing Centre (CESCA).
  • Dialnet Thesis: it has a section especially for theses which brings together the complete text of digital theses presented in the universities that are participating in the project as partner institutions.
  • DART Europe: it is the European portal where you can access the electronic theses presented in the European universities that are part of the project. It is currently run by University College London and the network has over 110 universities from all over Europe.
  • Networked digital library of thesis and dissertations (NDLTD): an international organisation that promotes the collection and preservation of digital theses. 122 universities are currently participating in it.
  • Open Access Theses and Dissertations (OATD): a portal with open access to the theses presented in over 1100 universities and research institutions across the world.
  • MIT Theses: a database with the doctoral theses from the MIT Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • TEL (thèses-en-ligne): multidisciplinary portal for French theses, an initiative of the Centre pour la Communication Scientifique Directe (CCSD) and the Celulle MathDoc.
  • DiVA: a database of theses and research papers from over 28 Scandinavian universities.