Northampton's research degrees are governed by the Academic Regulations for research students, which cover PhD, MPhil and professional doctorates together. The Graduate School provides the university-wide framework for training and support around them.
A note on sourcing before we start. Northampton publishes its regulations as a document rather than as web pages, and some of the detail in it is not reproduced anywhere public. Where that is the case below, this guide says so rather than filling the gap with a figure borrowed from another university. Thesis word limits are the main example: read them in the regulations themselves, or ask the Graduate School.
The sentence worth reading twice
Most universities describe submission as something your supervisors approve. Northampton is more explicit about where the decision actually sits:
The final decision to submit a thesis in any particular form rests with the candidate alone, though it would be unwise to submit against the judgement of the supervisory team.
Both halves matter. You have the right, and the regulations tell you plainly that using it against advice is a bad idea.
In practice this is worth knowing for a narrower reason than it first appears. Disagreements about readiness are rarely about the whole thesis; they are usually about one chapter, one claim, or how much more data would be enough. Knowing the decision is formally yours makes it easier to have that conversation specifically, rather than treating supervisor approval as a gate you cannot discuss.
Practice-based PhDs
If you are working in the Arts, the definition of "thesis" is broader than the word suggests:
For practice-based PhDs in the Arts, 'thesis' denotes the totality of the submission, which may comprise a practical component, for example a fine art exhibition, design, creative writing, musical composition, film, dance or performance, accompanied by an analytical commentary.
Two implications. The practical work is part of the examined submission, not context for it. And the commentary is doing analytical work, not describing what you made. Candidates who treat the commentary as documentation tend to under-serve it.
What happens to your thesis afterwards
This is where Northampton's published guidance is most detailed, and it is the part to read early, because the permissions work takes months.
Theses are deposited in NECTAR, the University's open access institutional repository.
Embargoes
| Embargo | Rule |
|---|---|
| 12 months | The standard period, to let you publish from the thesis |
| Longer than 12 months | Requires Research Degrees Committee approval |
Extended embargoes are granted for reasons including ethical considerations, data protection, commercial sensitivity, contractual obligations, or a pending patent. If any of those describe your work, raise it well before submission rather than at deposit.
Third-party material, and redaction
When a thesis becomes publicly available you need permission from the copyright holder for most third-party content. The exception is genuinely useful:
Short quotations which are appropriately cited and referenced fall under fair dealing and do not require permission.
So quoting a text is fine. Reproducing a photograph, figure, map or diagram generally is not.
If permission is refused, the outcome is not that your thesis is rejected:
The full thesis remains in NECTAR for preservation but is not made publicly available. You may instead submit a redacted version, with the third-party material removed, for public access.
That is a workable fallback, but a redacted thesis with holes where its key figures should be is a poor advertisement for the work. Start permissions early enough that refusal is something you can design around rather than absorb.
What you actually hand in
- A completed Thesis Submission Form
- One hard bound copy
- An electronic version
Recommended formats: Word, PDF, RTF or HTML for text; PNG, TIFF or JPEG for images; MP4 or MOV for multimedia; MP3 or WAV for audio.
One caveat: the Graduate School's deposit guidance has been in place for some years. Confirm the current submission requirements with the Graduate School before you pay for hard binding, since hard copy requirements are the sort of thing universities have been quietly dropping.
Durations
Northampton states durations as ranges on programme pages rather than as a single university-wide figure. For English, as an illustration:
| Route | Full time | Part time |
|---|---|---|
| MPhil | 12 months to 3 years | 30 months to 5 years |
| PhD | 2 to 4 years | 3 to 6 years |
| PhD by Published Works | 1 to 2 years | Available part time |
These are that programme's figures. Check your own programme page, because they differ. The wide ranges reflect that the minimum is rarely the realistic case.
Admission also requires a research proposal and an interview, and is conditional on suitable research supervision being available.
What to confirm rather than assume
The regulations are the authority, and these are not published openly:
- Thesis word limits for PhD, MPhil and professional doctorates
- Examination panel composition and examiner numbers
- Examination outcomes and the correction deadlines attached to them
- Resubmission rules
- Registration periods, as distinct from the indicative programme durations
- Formatting requirements: margins, font, line spacing
- Citation style, which is a disciplinary matter
- Any similarity threshold or policy on generative AI use
Ask the Graduate School, and get anything that affects your timeline in writing.
Pre-submission checklist
- Word limit confirmed from the Academic Regulations, not assumed
- Permissions requested for every third-party image, figure, map and diagram
- Understood that short cited quotations need no permission
- Redacted version prepared if any permission has been refused
- Embargo decided, with Research Degrees Committee approval sought if over 12 months
- Practical component and analytical commentary both examined-ready, if practice-based
- Thesis Submission Form completed
- Current hard copy and electronic requirements confirmed with the Graduate School
- Submitting with, not against, my supervisory team's judgement
Where to get help
The Graduate School owns the process, the regulations and everything this guide has flagged as unpublished. The Research Degrees Committee approves extended embargoes. Your supervisory team owns the academic judgement, which the regulations are careful to say is advice rather than permission.
If the writing itself is where you are stuck, our thesis writing support works through it chapter by chapter, and our PhD thesis help covers doctoral work specifically.
