E-Theses Online Service

E-Theses Online Service: EThOS
Website type	Bibliographic database
Available in	English
Owner	British Library
Website	ethos.bl.uk
Registration	Optional
Launched	2009; 17 years ago
Current status	Online

E-Theses Online Service (EThOS) is a bibliographic database and union catalogue of electronic theses provided by the British Library, the National Library of the United Kingdom. As of July 2026^[update] EThOS provides access to over 650,000 doctoral theses awarded by over 140 UK higher education institutions, with around 3,000 new thesis records added every month. The service was taken offline for three years from 2023 to 2026 following the British Library cyberattack.

EThOS services

Stephen Hawking's highly viewed 1966 thesis *Properties of expanding universes* is indexed by EThOS.

EThOS records thesis data and metadata which can then be searched with basic and advanced search terms.

Data recorded in EThOS

Theses indexed by EThOS have a minimum of a thesis title, author, awarding body and date. Optional additional metadata may be included such as the thesis abstract, doctoral advisor, sponsor, cross links to other databases and the full text of the thesis itself.

As of September 2017^[update] the EThOS website gives open access to the full text of around 160,000 UK doctoral theses that have been digitised. Theses can be accessed by freely registering for then logging into EThOS. Open access is also provided by links to the Institutional repository of the awarding body. Since 2015, EThOS has integrated authority control and other unique identifiers including:

The author's ORCID identifier..
The International Standard Name Identifier (ISNI).
The Handle System.
Digital Object Identifiers (DOIs).

Some thesis records include the name of the doctoral advisor.

Doctoral advisor metadata can be used in academic genealogies like academictree.org, Wikidata and the Mathematics Genealogy Project. Academic genealogies in Wikidata are built using the doctoral advisor relation (Property:P184).

Searching EThOS metadata

Where present, metadata can be used as search criteria. So for example, in addition to a basic search, an advanced search facility allows users to search for theses by publication year, awarding body, author's given name, surname, thesis title, doctoral advisor and various other metadata. Data in EThOS can also be accessed programmatically (by machines) using the Protocol for Metadata Harvesting (PMH) from the Open Archives Initiative (OAI), DataCite and its Application Programming Interface (API).

Types of thesis included

As well as indexing Doctor of Philosophy theses, EThOS holds records of other kinds of doctorates including:

Doctor of Medicine (MD) theses, for example Pensée Wu's thesis.
Doctor of Science (ScD or DSc) theses, for example Else Bartels thesis.
Doctor of Engineering (EngD or DEng) theses, for example Chris Dighton's thesis.
Doctor of Professional Studies (ProfD or DProf) theses, for example Andreas Georgiou's thesis.
Doctor of Music (MusD or DMus) and Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) theses, for example Evaristo Lopez thesis.
Doctor of Education (EdD or DEd) theses, for example Mary Greaves thesis.
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD or DPhil) by prior publication in peer reviewed journals, for example Jill Steward's thesis.
Doctor of Philosophy in creative writing, for example Sally O'Reilly's thesis.

Master's degree theses such as Master of Philosophy (MPhil), Master of Research (MRes), Master of Science (MSc) and Master of Arts (MA) theses are not indexed by EThoS. Honorary degrees are also not included as there is usually no actual written thesis.

Development and contact

EThOS was developed in partnership with Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) around the UK with funding from Research Libraries UK (RLUK) and Jisc (formerly the Joint Information Systems Committee) and was launched in January 2009. EThOS staff at the British Library can be contacted during office hours on email, Twitter and in person at the British Library.

Availability

EThOS was taken offline by the British Library cyberattack and became unavailable in December 2023.

By 2026, there were plans to restore downloads and on-demand digitization "later [that year]", as well as an interim platform running solely on the platform's metadata. The lack of progress on restoring EThOS has been criticised by Martin Paul Eve, who said that the interim platform lacked the centralisation central to EThOS and that the British Library had not prioritised restoration.

As of July 2026^[update] the service is back online.

References

1 2 3 Troman, Anthony; Jacobs, Neil; Copeland, Susan (2007). "A new electronic service for UK theses: access transformed by EThOS". Interlending & Document Supply. 35 (3): 157–163. doi:10.1108/02641610710780836. ISSN 0264-1615.
↑ Gould, Sara (2016). "UK theses and the British Library EThOS service: from supply on demand to repository linking". Interlending & Document Supply. 44 (1): 7–13. doi:10.1108/ILDS-10-2015-0033. ISSN 0264-1615.
↑ Gould, Sara (6 June 2017). "UK theses and the British Library EThOS service: from supply on demand to repository linking". Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.803351.
1 2 3 Anon (2009). "British Library EThOS e-theses online service". ethos.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2009-01-24.
1 2 "Search EThOS (E-Theses Online Service): Search the metadata of over 650,000 UK doctoral theses". ethos.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2026-07-18.
↑ Anon (2017). "Higher Education Institutions Participating in EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2012-02-24.
↑ Anon (2014). Using PhD theses in research: EThOS on YouTube
1 2 Anon (2017). "About EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-03-21.
↑ Anon (2017). "EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service)". le.ac.uk. University of Leicester. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Anon (2017). "Requesting UK Doctoral Theses". bbk.ac.uk. Birkbeck, University of London. Archived from the original on 2016-07-14. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Anon (2017). "EThOS Toolkit: A guide to using and participating in EThOS". ethostoolkit.cranfield.ac.uk. Cranfield University. Archived from the original on 2017-08-23.
1 2 Keating, Roly (2024). "LEARNING LESSONS FROM THE CYBER-ATTACK: British Library cyber incident review" (PDF). bl.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-03-09.
↑ Anon (2017). "Professor Stephen Hawking's PhD viewed two million times". bbc.co.uk. London: BBC News.
↑ Hawking, Stephen William (1966). Properties of Expanding Universes. repository.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/CAM.11283. OCLC 62793673. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.601153.
↑ Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1937). X-ray crystallography and the chemistry of the sterols. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.727110.
↑ May, Brian Harold (2007). A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (PDF) (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Imperial College London. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-77706-1. hdl:10044/1/1333. ISBN 978-0-387-77706-1. OCLC 754716941. OL 37141356M. Wikidata Q28971627.
↑ Greer, Germaine (1968). The Ethic of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's Early Comedies. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/CAM.567. OCLC 221288543. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.599683.
↑ Cox, Brian Edward (1998). Double diffraction dissociation at large momentum transfer (PDF). desy.de (PhD thesis). University of Manchester. OCLC 644443338. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.675409.
1 2 3 Anon (2017). "British Library EThOS: Advanced Search". ethos.bl.uk.
↑ Anon (2017). "The Academic Family Tree". academictree.org. Archived from the original on 2017-06-08.
↑ Amaral, Luís A. Nunes; David, Stephen V.; Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2012). "Neurotree: A Collaborative, Graphical Database of the Academic Genealogy of Neuroscience". PLoS ONE. 7 (10) e46608. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...746608D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046608. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3465338. PMID 23071595.
1 2 Poulter, Martin (2017). "A step forward in the sharing of open data about theses". bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Oxford: Bodleian Library.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)
↑ Vrandečić, Denny; Krötzsch, Markus (2014). "Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase". Communications of the ACM. 57 (10): 78–85. doi:10.1145/2629489. ISSN 0001-0782.
↑ Anon (2017). "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2017-02-26.
↑ Anon (2017). "DataCite search: British Library PhD theses". datacite.org. Archived from the original on 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Anon (2017). "DataCite REST API: A common API to get all metadata from DataCite". api.datacite.org.
↑ Wu, Pensée (2009). Muscular dystrophy cell therapy: an in utero approach using human fetal mesenchymal stem cells. ethos.bl.uk (MD thesis). Imperial College London. hdl:10044/1/4726. OCLC 930655636. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Bartels, Else Marie (1990). Studies of the physiological states of cross-striated muscle with the aim of understanding the underlying processes of the changes from one state to another. ethos.bl.uk (DSc thesis). Open University. OCLC 53556783.
↑ Dighton, Chris (2020). Aspects of Bonded Composite Assemblies for Aerospace Applications. ethos.bl.uk (EngD thesis). University of Surrey.
↑ Georgiou, Andreas K. (2010). Corporate governance and its effect on the performance on family and non-family companies listed on the Cyprus stock exchange. ethos.bl.uk (DProf thesis). Middlesex University. OCLC 840721110. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Aguilar Lopez, Evaristo (2006). DMA Portfolio 'Rhythms of the Huasteca'. ethos.bl.uk (Doctor of Musical Arts thesis). University of Salford. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Greaves, Mary (2011). Practitioner research: a journey in optimistic disappointment?. ethos.bl.uk (DEd thesis). Manchester Metropolitan University. OCLC 757137107. Archived from the original on 2022-12-09. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ Steward, Jill (2008). The development of tourist culture and the formation of social and cultural identities 1800-1914, with particular reference to Central Europe. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). Northumbria University. OCLC 757146249. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ O'Reilly, Sally Anne (2012). Dark Aemilia and inventing Shakespeare. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). Brunel University London. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.
↑ "JISCMail". jiscmail.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-15.
↑ E-Theses Online Service on X
↑ Grove, Jack (2023-12-04). "Scholars 'stumble through' as British Library tools stay offline". timeshighereducation.com. Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2024-03-03.
↑ Keating, Roly (2024). "Cyber-attack update". bl.uk/cyber-incident. Archived from the original on 2024-06-29.
1 2 Grove, Jack (2026-01-29). "'Give PhD archive attention it deserves,' British Library urged". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2026-03-07.

[new-1] 1 2 3 Troman, Anthony; Jacobs, Neil; Copeland, Susan (2007). "A new electronic service for UK theses: access transformed by EThOS". Interlending & Document Supply. 35 (3): 157–163. doi:10.1108/02641610710780836. ISSN 0264-1615.

[Gould2016-2] Gould, Sara (2016). "UK theses and the British Library EThOS service: from supply on demand to repository linking". Interlending & Document Supply. 44 (1): 7–13. doi:10.1108/ILDS-10-2015-0033. ISSN 0264-1615.

[3] Gould, Sara (6 June 2017). "UK theses and the British Library EThOS service: from supply on demand to repository linking". Zenodo. doi:10.5281/zenodo.803351.

[ethos-4] 1 2 3 Anon (2009). "British Library EThOS e-theses online service". ethos.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2009-01-24.

[online-5] 1 2 "Search EThOS (E-Theses Online Service): Search the metadata of over 650,000 UK doctoral theses". ethos.bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2026-07-18.

[participants-6] Anon (2017). "Higher Education Institutions Participating in EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2012-02-24.

[youtube-7] Anon (2014). Using PhD theses in research: EThOS on YouTube

[about-8] 1 2 Anon (2017). "About EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2016-03-21.

[9] Anon (2017). "EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service)". le.ac.uk. University of Leicester. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[10] Anon (2017). "Requesting UK Doctoral Theses". bbk.ac.uk. Birkbeck, University of London. Archived from the original on 2016-07-14. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[toolkit-11] Anon (2017). "EThOS Toolkit: A guide to using and participating in EThOS". ethostoolkit.cranfield.ac.uk. Cranfield University. Archived from the original on 2017-08-23.

[lessons-12] 1 2 Keating, Roly (2024). "LEARNING LESSONS FROM THE CYBER-ATTACK: British Library cyber incident review" (PDF). bl.uk. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2024-03-09.

[bbc-13] Anon (2017). "Professor Stephen Hawking's PhD viewed two million times". bbc.co.uk. London: BBC News.

[orcidexample-14] Hawking, Stephen William (1966). Properties of Expanding Universes. repository.cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/CAM.11283. OCLC 62793673. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.601153.

[dphd-15] Hodgkin, Dorothy Mary Crowfoot (1937). X-ray crystallography and the chemistry of the sterols. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.727110.

[mayphd-16] May, Brian Harold (2007). A Survey of Radial Velocities in the Zodiacal Dust Cloud (PDF) (Doctor of Philosophy thesis). Imperial College London. doi:10.1007/978-0-387-77706-1. hdl:10044/1/1333. ISBN 978-0-387-77706-1. OCLC 754716941. OL 37141356M. Wikidata Q28971627.

[greerphd-17] Greer, Germaine (1968). The Ethic of Love and Marriage in Shakespeare's Early Comedies. cam.ac.uk (PhD thesis). University of Cambridge. doi:10.17863/CAM.567. OCLC 221288543. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.599683.

[coxphd-18] Cox, Brian Edward (1998). Double diffraction dissociation at large momentum transfer (PDF). desy.de (PhD thesis). University of Manchester. OCLC 644443338. EThOS uk.bl.ethos.675409.

[advanced-19] 1 2 3 Anon (2017). "British Library EThOS: Advanced Search". ethos.bl.uk.

[tree-20] Anon (2017). "The Academic Family Tree". academictree.org. Archived from the original on 2017-06-08.

[neurotree-21] Amaral, Luís A. Nunes; David, Stephen V.; Hayden, Benjamin Y. (2012). "Neurotree: A Collaborative, Graphical Database of the Academic Genealogy of Neuroscience". PLoS ONE. 7 (10) e46608. Bibcode:2012PLoSO...746608D. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0046608. ISSN 1932-6203. PMC 3465338. PMID 23071595.

[wikiphd-22] 1 2 Poulter, Martin (2017). "A step forward in the sharing of open data about theses". bodleian.ox.ac.uk. Oxford: Bodleian Library.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: deprecated archival service (link)

[wikidata-23] Vrandečić, Denny; Krötzsch, Markus (2014). "Wikidata: a free collaborative knowledgebase". Communications of the ACM. 57 (10): 78–85. doi:10.1145/2629489. ISSN 0001-0782.

[faq-24] Anon (2017). "Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) about EThOS". bl.uk. Archived from the original on 2017-02-26.

[datacite-25] Anon (2017). "DataCite search: British Library PhD theses". datacite.org. Archived from the original on 2020-07-31. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[api-26] Anon (2017). "DataCite REST API: A common API to get all metadata from DataCite". api.datacite.org.

[MDexample-27] Wu, Pensée (2009). Muscular dystrophy cell therapy: an in utero approach using human fetal mesenchymal stem cells. ethos.bl.uk (MD thesis). Imperial College London. hdl:10044/1/4726. OCLC 930655636. Archived from the original on 2020-08-05. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[28] Bartels, Else Marie (1990). Studies of the physiological states of cross-striated muscle with the aim of understanding the underlying processes of the changes from one state to another. ethos.bl.uk (DSc thesis). Open University. OCLC 53556783.

[29] Dighton, Chris (2020). Aspects of Bonded Composite Assemblies for Aerospace Applications. ethos.bl.uk (EngD thesis). University of Surrey.

[professional-30] Georgiou, Andreas K. (2010). Corporate governance and its effect on the performance on family and non-family companies listed on the Cyprus stock exchange. ethos.bl.uk (DProf thesis). Middlesex University. OCLC 840721110. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[31] Aguilar Lopez, Evaristo (2006). DMA Portfolio 'Rhythms of the Huasteca'. ethos.bl.uk (Doctor of Musical Arts thesis). University of Salford. Archived from the original on 2020-08-06. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[32] Greaves, Mary (2011). Practitioner research: a journey in optimistic disappointment?. ethos.bl.uk (DEd thesis). Manchester Metropolitan University. OCLC 757137107. Archived from the original on 2022-12-09. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[bypublicationexample-33] Steward, Jill (2008). The development of tourist culture and the formation of social and cultural identities 1800-1914, with particular reference to Central Europe. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). Northumbria University. OCLC 757146249. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[creativewritingexample-34] O'Reilly, Sally Anne (2012). Dark Aemilia and inventing Shakespeare. ethos.bl.uk (PhD thesis). Brunel University London. Archived from the original on 2018-06-12. Retrieved 2017-11-07.

[35] "JISCMail". jiscmail.ac.uk. Retrieved 2018-03-15.

[36] E-Theses Online Service on X

[37] Grove, Jack (2023-12-04). "Scholars 'stumble through' as British Library tools stay offline". timeshighereducation.com. Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2024-03-03.

[cyber-38] Keating, Roly (2024). "Cyber-attack update". bl.uk/cyber-incident. Archived from the original on 2024-06-29.

[Grove_2026-39] 1 2 Grove, Jack (2026-01-29). "'Give PhD archive attention it deserves,' British Library urged". Times Higher Education. Retrieved 2026-03-07.