If you submitted your thesis via PhD Manager you will be prompted to complete questions regarding access, if you submitted outside of PhD Manager you should use the Ulster eThesis Deposit Agreement to request a hold, which is usually granted for a period of two years. Any hold requested will apply to both the electronic version and the paper version of your thesis.
Reasons to restrict access
You may find yourself in the situation where you have either been unable to obtain permission to include third party copyright material or have signed IP agreements with an Industry sponsor which does not permit you to make your thesis publicly available.
In such cases, you should submit two electronic copies of your thesis (one including all third party copyright material (which will not be made publicly available) and the second being an edited version with no copyright material included).
There may be other reasons why you may require to place a hold on the publication of your thesis, which may relate to exemptions under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 or the Environmental Information Regulations 2004, the most common of which are:
- your thesis is due for publication, either as a series of articles or as monograph;
- your thesis contains commercially sensitive information, the release of which might prejudice the commercial interests of any person including the author, the University or an external company;
- your thesis includes material that was obtained under a promise of confidentiality;
- the release of your thesis might endanger the physical or mental health or the safety of an individual;
- publication would cause you or third parties mentioned in the text to be open to legal challenge or racial, ethnic, political or other persecution.
Your supervisory team will be able to advise on such matters.