university of melbourne phd thesis

Finding theses

University of melbourne theses, australian theses,   international theses, referencing theses, further help, find theses online and in print.

This guide shows you how to find Masters and PhD theses, online and in print, from:

• The University of Melbourne
• Other Australian universities
• Outside Australia

Why use theses?

Theses can be a valuable source of information, especially for topics where there are fewer published works available., the references or works cited in a thesis can also be useful to find further published sources on a topic..

If you are currently writing a thesis (Honours, Masters or PhD) you may want to:

• check if anyone has recently completed a PhD thesis in your area of research internationally
• look at PhD theses from your faculty (or supervised by your supervisor) to get an idea of how to format your thesis.

Most recent theses are available through Minerva Access , the University's institutional repository. 

Minerva includes PhD and Masters Research theses, as well as a smaller number of Honours and Masters Coursework theses.

Accessing Full-Text in Minerva Access

Open access theses.

• Many theses are open access, which means anyone is able to read the full text online, and no subscription or login is required.
• Use the download link on the left to access a PDF of the thesis.

Restricted access theses

Some theses are currently only available to university of melbourne staff/students.

Use the login link and access with your unimelb username and password

Embargoed theses

If a thesis is under full embargo , full-text is not available for internal or external access (including inter-library loan requests). It a thesis is under an external embargo , it can be requested by University staff and students for research purposes via Minerva Access .

You will be able to view an abstract 

Finding theses from your faculty or school in Minerva Access

You can limit your results in minerva access to view only theses from your faculty..

1. Select your faculty from the list of Communities on the Minerva Access homepage. You may need to also choose your school on the next page. 

2. Select the option that includes Theses  (rather than Research Publications) 

3.To further refine the list (ie. to only PhD theses) scroll down to use the Type menu on the far left menu bar.

Finding University of Melbourne print theses

University of Melbourne theses not available online are held in the Cultural Collections Reading Room on level 3 of the Baillieu Library, or in offsite storage. While you cannot physically browse the thesis collection, you can submit a request to view a thesis using the online form .

You can search the Library Catalogue  to find our print collection of University of Melbourne theses

• To restrict your search to just theses, select University of Melbourne Theses from the drop-down menu to the right of the search bar

For more information on requesting to view print theses see the Special Collections website . ( Note : Use the request form for Rare Books)

Australian theses from other universities can be found via Trove .

1. Select Advanced search on the Trove homepage, and choose Research and reports

2. Type your search terms into the first box (Keyword search box)

3. Check the box next to Australian content

4. Click the green Search button

5. On the results page, select the Show more  option under Format

6. Select Thesis  to limit your results to theses

7.  To access, check the purple link at the bottom of each record. Theses available online will either:

• have a link to where they are held

• have an Access conditions apply  link

8. Click on the title of the thesis to view the record, and select the  Read  button to access the full text

•  If the thesis is not available online through Trove, please complete a Thesis request form on the  Request Forms page . We will then try to obtain a copy of the thesis for you via inter-library loan. 
• For more information on using the Advanced Search to create more specific searches, see Trove's Australian theses page. 

These are the top four international theses databases that include full-text:

• ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global The most comprehensive collection of dissertations and theses from around the world. Spans 1743 to the present day, offering full text for most dissertations added since 1997.
• British Library EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service) Search for UK theses and access or request full text. See FAQs for more information.
• DART-Europe E-theses Portal Access to digitised theses from European universities.
• OATD: Open Access Theses and Dissertations Indexes more than 1.5 million theses and dissertations. Metadata (information about the theses) comes from 600+ colleges, universities, and research institutions.

Other useful theses databases ​

• American Doctoral Dissertations
• China Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses full-text Database This database is a comprehensive, high quality database of dissertations and theses in China. The dissertations and theses are from hundreds of institutions located across China. Coverage is 1984 onwards and is updated daily. It covers a wide range of subjects such as fundamental sciences, engineering technology, agriculture, medical science, history, philosophy, education, law, economics and more.
• CNKI China Academic Journals Most comprehensive, full-text database of Chinese journals. To narrow your searching select section (G) Politics/ Military Affairs/ Law to search across the database.
• KRIS - Kiwi Research Information Service NZ open access research document portal.
• TEL (thèses-en-ligne) French theses
• Theses Canada Portal

Need help with referencing theses?

Visit the Re:cite guide to referencing

Contact us , or ask a question on Library chat

Visit us on social media.

• Last Updated: Aug 2, 2024 12:10 PM
• URL: https://unimelb.libguides.com/findingtheses

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• Submitting your thesis

Submitting your thesis and beyond

Tips on what you need to do before you submit your thesis and beyond.

When you pass the 3-year mark in your PhD candidature (or 1-year mark in your MPhil candidature) you should start preparing to submit your thesis to ensure timely completion. There are several requirements you will need to follow to successfully submit your thesis.

Get organised for your Completion Seminar

All graduate researchers are required to make a public presentation of their research findings at the University in the six-months prior to submitting their thesis for examination. This is called a Completion Seminar and is regarded as an important part of candidature. The seminar should present the objectives, methods, findings and significance of the candidate's thesis research. This is often a departmental seminar. Your supervisors will write a report detailing feedback that can be used for the final draft. Your Completion Seminar should be undertaken at around 3-6 months before you intend to submit. Be proactive and arrange your Completion Seminar ahead of time.

For more information on Completion seminars please go to the Graduate Research Hub page: Submitting my thesis | University of Melbourne (unimelb.edu.au)

Completion seminar requirements can be viewed on the Graduate Research Training Policy (MPF132) policy library. Please note: This policy in the process of being updated .

Preparing your thesis

There is a plethora of information on the GR Hub in regard to:

• Writing your thesis
• Incorporating your published work in your thesis
• Thesis with creative works
• Preparation of Graduate Research Thesis Rules
• Graduate researchers and digital assistance tools
• Research integrity in my thesis

All of which can be found here: Preparing my thesis | University of Melbourne (unimelb.edu.au)

Preparing to submit

Similarly, on the GR Hub there is information on what your need to do before you submit your thesis. Submitting my thesis | University of Melbourne (unimelb.edu.au)

Topics include

• Before you submit your thesis IP Guide
• Completion Seminar
• Creative works
• iThenticate
• Graduate Research Thesis Submission Checklist (download from the site)
• Read the section ‘How to submit’, which may take some of the mystery out of this final step and help take the jitters out of this stage.

The examination process

For information on the examination process Examination Overview | University of Melbourne (unimelb.edu.au)

Key points on:

• What examiners look for
• The Thesis Examination System
• Examination process
• Examination of jointly awarded PhD
• Examination criteria and marking
• Responding to examiners
• Changes to the thesis
• Citation for Completion

For additional information please view the Graduate Research Training Policy Graduate Research Training Policy (unimelb.edu.au)

Thesis submission date expiry and late submission

Your final thesis submission date will correspond to the maximum period of your candidature, that is for a PhD (4.5 EFTSL/years if you commenced prior to 1 March 2020, and 4 EFTSL if you commenced on or after 1 March 2020) or MPhil (2 EFTSL if you commenced on or after 1 March 2020).

However, if you need more time to submit, these are the options for GRs who confirmed after Jan 2018.

• If you need to up to two more weeks post final thesis submission date you need to apply for a 10-working day extension. Please request this by email with [email protected]
• If you cannot submit your thesis by your final thesis submission date and you need several weeks or up to 12 months extension of your thesis submission date, you need to apply for Late submission . Late submission applications need to be requested with the FEIT GR team 2 months prior to your final thesis submission date = 4 EFTSL date. More information on late submission can be found here: Late Submission | University of Melbourne (unimelb.edu.au)

Student visa holders: Staying in Australia for the examination period

Please take care with managing your visa extension needs, especially if your visa expiry date corresponds with your thesis submission date period and you intend on staying in Australia for the examination period. Please contact Stop1 for visa queries well before issues arise if you can.

Once student visa holders submit their thesis their CoE is ‘completed’ and they need to apply for a  CMT if they intend staying in Australia for the examination period. For requesting CMTs and more information: Renewing your student visa (unimelb.edu.au)

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Incorporating publications in your thesis

Publications and your doctorate thesis.

This resource provides a brief introduction to incorporating publications in your thesis. It includes activities to help you apply tips and reflect on your learning, and should take you 15-20 minutes to read and complete. Check out the further resources at the bottom of each section and references on the last page for more information on this topic.

Including papers that you have written for publication as part of your thesis shows your achievements and impact as a researcher.

This page looks at some key considerations for including publications in your thesis and connecting them into a unified narrative.

Approaching a thesis that includes publication

There are several approaches to incorporating publications into your thesis. You might:

• include individual papers that you have already prepared, or start with a broad thesis plan that sets out the individual papers you wish to submit for publication as you work on your research project.
• finalise your publications before or after you’ve written the related thesis chapters.
• be modifying your publications to fit the thesis or adapting your thesis into publications.

No matter what your circumstances, the university offers a wide range of options for putting together a graduate research thesis. Keep in mind:

• The same criteria, including the required volume of work, apply to theses with or without publication, and theses with small or large publication proportions.
• Focus on the thesis as a whole and the integration of any publication to strengthen the thesis, rather than the number or status of your publications.
• Your thesis, first and foremost, should provide a clear and cohesive narrative of your research to your readers.

Challenges of a thesis that includes publication

Although any form of thesis will have its challenges, writing a thesis that includes publication may create extra demands on you.

For example, choosing to get your work published early in your candidature might mean you feel the pressure to write like an expert, even when you don’t yet feel like one.

Also, your papers might speak to different audiences with different purposes at different stages of your research, and follow different journal conventions. This means that, when it comes time to incorporate your publications into a longer piece of work, you will need to align them and make them fit the purpose and audience of your thesis.

To help you start tackling these challenges, it’s useful to know what qualities a doctorate thesis needs to demonstrate and think about how to curate your publications to show these.

Showing doctorate qualities using your publications

High standards apply to the examination of a doctorate thesis. Nygaard and Solli (2021) synthesise these standards into five qualities:

Your thesis writing needs to be of a publishable standard. While this can be evaluated in terms of potential publishability, including published work or papers intended for publication in your thesis can provide clear evidence of this.

• How many publications do you intend to include in your thesis? What are they?
• What are the publication statuses of these papers (intended/under review/published)?
• What journals are your works published in/intended for? Are they peer-reviewed?

While your publications need to speak to the scholarly communities of the journals you submit them to, which may or may not fit neatly in a single discipline, your thesis will need to show that it belongs in the discipline it sits within. Show awareness of the terminology, conventions, key conversations or debates of your field, even when you’re deviating from these.

If your thesis is interdisciplinary, state early in your writing what disciplines it brings together and why; you will also need to deal with the terminology and conventions of these disciplines for readers who may not be familiar with them.

• What discipline(s) does your thesis belong in?
• How do your publications relate to this discipline?
• What disciplinary terminology, conventions, conversations or debates are you drawing on in your thesis?

Your thesis needs to show you’re making a new and significant contribution to your field.

This could be providing a new understanding of or solution to an existing problem, building a new model, framework or methodology for tackling an old issue, or continuing or investigating someone else’s work. Originality involves finding your own angle or position on your research problem, not just reporting new data. This angle or position should be embedded in your whole thesis, including your publications.

• What contribution will your thesis make to your field?
• In what ways will this contribution be new and significant?
• What are the contributions of your publications? How do they align with the overall contribution of the thesis?

While you can draw extensively on your discipline, your examiners will be looking for clear evidence of your ability to think independently and express your own ideas confidently as a researcher and writer.

If your research is part of a bigger team project, or if you intend to include co-authored papers in your thesis, indicate clearly which part of the work you undertook, how your work shaped the bigger project and what you learned from working with others.

• Is your research part of a bigger project involving a team of researchers?
• Are you including co-authored papers in your thesis? If so, do they meet the University’s authorship requirements for inclusion ?
• If you answered ‘yes’ to either of the above questions, what is your part of the work? How has it shaped the bigger work? What have you learned from the collaboration?

Your thesis, whether with or without publication, needs to form a cohesive text from beginning to end. All its elements need to align effectively with one another to make a unified overarching argument.

For example, your conclusion should address at a high level the research problem described in the introduction, whereas the middle chapters should pace the answer to the research question or hypothesis in a way that draws on the foregoing chapters and builds up to the more conceptual discussion at the end.

• Can you identify an overarching argument in your thesis? If so, what is it?
• What are the key messages of your thesis chapters, including publications?
• How do these messages relate to one another and the overarching argument?

For information on how to write a paper for publication and on policy questions about formal requirements for a thesis that includes publications, click on ‘Further resources’.

Writing a paper for publication

Graduate Research Training Policy

Graduate Research Hub: Incorporating publications

Use the side menu to go the next section: Planning your thesis including publications , where we explore thesis and publication mapping tools.

Planning your thesis including publications

Aim to plan your publications as part of initial planning of the whole thesis. This reduces duplication or gaps between the papers, and involves less work than retrofitting publications to your thesis later on. Nevertheless, it’s never too late to recalibrate your plan with emerging publications in mind.

Use planning tools

Planning tools such as a thesis map and publication map  can be used both prospectively and retrospectively. It’s a good idea to go through this process in the thesis planning phase, and review the results regularly throughout your candidature.

This video shows you how to use a thesis mapping template and publication mapping tool to plan your thesis and publications. You can download the  thesis mapping template (DOCX 23.0 KB) and publication mapping template  (DOCX 19.9 KB) that are shown in the video.

Consider how publications relate to the thesis

It's rare to have a linear, one-to-one relationship whereby each publication answers one research question completely. An example of this might be that each publication reports one experiment in a series of experiments that correspond neatly to the list of aims and hypotheses in a thesis. Even if your thesis fits this category, you still need to demonstrate how these aims and hypotheses relate together as part of a whole narrative.

More often, though, your publications will address the overarching research question in a complementary manner, for example by using different methods or focusing on different aspects of the problem. Ask:

• How do the papers complement one another and provide a nuanced answer to the research question?
• If they are in conflict, how could you resolve it or justify a more complex answer?

Sequence publications logically

Incorporate publications in an order that progresses your argument, not necessarily in the order of the writing or publication dates. It is usual to have one publication as one chapter in the thesis.

However, if it makes more sense to combine two shorter papers into one chapter, or to omit part of a publication from a chapter, explain and justify your choice clearly in the introduction to the chapter.

Learn from example theses

As part of your planning, you may find it valuable to look through a few examples of theses that include publications. Use the prompts below to help you reflect on how you could learn from examples.

1. Explore examples of thesis and chapter formats when including publications . Which thesis and chapter format resonates the most with your thesis plan?

2. Have a look at a few theses that include publications in your field or as close to your field as you can find. You can use the example theses on the Graduate Research Hub or find your own examples on Minerva . Ask:

• How many papers for publication are included as part of the thesis?
• What kind of papers are included? Empirical, theoretical, methodological or review?
• What structure does the thesis have? Does it follow an IMRAD (Introduction, Methods, Results and Discussion) structure, a variation of this or a different structure? Note down its key parts.
• How would you like your thesis to be structured?

Compare you answers to the above questions to your thesis plan or map. Would you like to change anything about it?

Examples of thesis and chapter formats when including publications

Examples of theses with publications

Minerva Access: University of Melbourne’s institutional repository

Publishing from the PhD – make a publication plan

Co-authoring a PhD by publication: Assigning percentages to who did what

Use the side menu to go the next section: Relating publications to thesis sections , where we look at the role of different thesis sections in integrating publications.

Relating publications to thesis sections

Sections of your writing that are exclusive to your thesis, which do not appear in your publications, can help integrate your publications by guiding readers to see links between your thesis and those publications. These links can demonstrate a strong sense of control over the design of your thesis and show examiners that you can connect the parts to the whole seamlessly.

The role of thesis sections in integrating your publications

Gives you the chance to frame, explicitly, the relationship between your publications and the thesis (the examples given below this presentation will indicate some ways to do this).

• Relates directly to your overarching research question
• Is more comprehensive and contains more detail than the background sections of publications
• Can include a paper for publication, which may need modifying so that it addresses your thesis question with an appropriate breadth and depth.

If the methods in your included publications don’t demonstrate the overarching approach of the thesis, or if they have evolved since, consider:

• Writing an overview of the methodology and its development in the introduction or a separate methodology chapter.
• Discussing how the methods reported in the publications link to the overarching methodology in the introduction or reflection sections of the chapters that contain the publications.

A chapter that contains publication typically begins with an added introductory section. In this section, you can:

• List the paper(s) included in the chapter.
• Briefly overview its specific aims or hypotheses in the context of the whole thesis.
• State any changes you’ve made to the original paper (additions, deletions and other modifications) and briefly give reasons for these changes.

If a publication forms sufficient material for a chapter, a basic chapter structure including an introductory section followed by the paper is a great choice. However, if the publication forms only part of the chapter, consider a more complex chapter structure, such as the following:

• Introduction – including specific aims and hypotheses
• Methods not included in the paper
• Results not included in the paper
• Discussion – extension of the paper’s discussion, further method development

While chapters that include publications usually highlight their specific contributions, the overall thesis discussion or conclusion should state the combined significance of all the findings at a more conceptual level.

You can synthesise findings from your papers using visualisation, such as in this example:

Visualising integration of findings across publications using bullet points and arrows (Bjerke, 2017, cited in Nygaard & Solli, 2021, p. 145)

Explore an example

This example raises your awareness of the different roles the thesis introduction plays in connecting publications to the thesis. In the presentation below, you will read three introduction excerpts from a history thesis (adapted from Mody, 2018, pp. 1–19). Answer the question on each slide, then turn the card to read the analysis. Some key language has been bolded to aid you.

*If content below does not display, please refresh your browser window

Use the side menu to go the next section: Establishing a cohesive narrative , where we look at how to approach the narrative for a thesis that includes publications.

Establishing a cohesive narrative

The narrative of a thesis refers to the broad enquiry that develops through and connects the more data-focused parts of the thesis, which can include publications.

The narrative typically includes the thesis introduction and thesis discussion/conclusion, as well as the text that introduces and reflects on the data chapters.

Establishing an effective narrative can help you:

• Transition between ideas smoothly
• Create a unified whole for your thesis
• Emphasise aspects of a publication to both differentiate and connect it to the thesis
• Resolve gaps, repetitions or tensions between publications or other thesis components
• Address issues that publications don’t accommodate but which are key to thesis examination, such as a detailed exploration of ethical challenges or your journey of learning and development as a researcher
• Develop new publication ideas, which may emerge from a comprehensive view of the whole thesis.

Engaging in crafting the narrative throughout your candidature can strengthen both your work and your researcher identity.

Overarching argument

Use the table of contents to place your publications in the thesis and gauge whether you can see a clear argument across all thesis components. The following example demonstrates how publications sit alongside chapters written for the thesis as equal components making up a whole.

While acknowledgement of a publication should be made, it’s important to integrate it into the thesis and avoid over-emphasising the role of publications to the extent that they may undermine any non-publication material.

Examine example narratives

Work through the following examples of thesis narratives and complete the associated activities to find out more about the features of an effective narrative. Some critical language has been bolded to help with your observations.

Reflect on the role of your publications, whether completed or intended, throughout the planning and writing of your thesis. This helps you to approach both your publications and your thesis proactively, and build strong research outputs and skills as a researcher-writer.

For more information and support in your writing, Explore: Academic Skills Graduate Research services

The “exegesis” in PhD by publication

Arundel, J. (2015). The spatio-temporal distribution of honey bees and floral resources in Australia [PhD thesis, University of Melbourne]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/59612

Bibb, J. (2016). Musical recovery: The role of group singing in regaining healthy relationships with music to promote mental health recovery [PhD thesis, University of Melbourne]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/124271

Mody, F. (2018). Doctors down under: European medical migrants in Victoria (Australia), 1930-60 [PhD thesis, University of Melbourne]. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/221550

Nygaard, L., & Solli, K. (2021). Strategies for writing a thesis by publication in the social sciences and humanities . Routledge.

Graduate Research

Doctor of Philosophy - Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

• Course code: DR-PHILMDH

Course overview

The degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences) at the University of Melbourne marks a student’s admission to the community of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences scholars. It signifies that the holder has undertaken a substantial piece of original research which has been conducted and reported by the holder via thesis.

The submission must be a careful, rigorous and sustained piece of work demonstrating that a research 'apprenticeship' is complete.

The PhD will demonstrate authority in the candidate's field and shows evidence of command of knowledge in relevant fields. The thesis must make a distinct contribution to knowledge and is judged on originality of approach and in some cases, the discovery of new facts.

In scope, the PhD thesis differs from a research master’s thesis chiefly by its deeper and more comprehensive treatment of the chosen subject. It is completed over a maximum period of up to four years full-time.

It is written succinctly, in English, unless approval has been given for the thesis to be written in a language other than English. All candidates for the degree will be examined on the basis of their thesis which is examined externally. The normal length of the submission is between 80,000 and 100,000 words, exclusive of words in tables, maps, bibliographies and appendices.

The PhD is an internationally recognised and highly transferable qualification designed for graduates to demonstrate academic leadership, independence, creativity and innovation in their research work.

Commencement period

• You may commence at any time during the year between 1 February and 31 October. Commencement in January or December is not advisable.
• Commencement in the degree is subject to prior arrangement with your nominated supervisor (Scholarships have separate rules and you should seek approval from Melbourne Scholarships to vary your scholarship commencement).
• Please check with the relevant academic unit prior to making any arrangements for enrolment or travel.

Upcoming information session

Phd in psychological sciences information session.

When:   Thursday 22 AUG 2024, 6pm - 7pm (Melbourne, Australia Time)

Read more and register

The Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences recently hosted an information session for prospective students interested in undertaking  PhD studies in Psychological Sciences .Click below to view the recording of the session.

View recording

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• Scholarships

Faculty of Science Postgraduate Writing-Up Award

Application is required. Check eligibility

Key scholarship details

Application status

Open for applications

Applications open

15 Jan 2024

Applications close

13 Dec 2024

Benefit amount

$3,000 - $5,000

Eligible study level

Graduate research

Eligible student type

Domestic and international students

Eligible study stage

Current study

Benefit duration

This scholarship supports University of Melbourne PhD and MPhil graduate researchers enrolled through the Faculty of Science once their thesis has been submitted. The award is valued at between $3000 and $5000.

A $5000 stipend paid over three months. Applicants who apply with less than two manuscripts may be considered for a lesser amount. Successful applicants will need to complete a final report, accessible below.

Final report

Eligibility and selection criteria

Eligibility.

To be considered for this award, you must:

• have submitted your PhD/MPhil thesis for examination and be awaiting the examination result
• not have been awarded a similar award
• not undertake full-time or substantial regular part-time employment during the tenure of the award (>10 hours/week)
• have submitted your thesis within three years and 10 months (FTE) candidature period, or one year and 11 months (FTE) for MPhil.

As of April 2020, if you have had your submission delayed by the circumstances around COVID-19 and thus missed submision deadline, please outline the impact in your application and it will be considered.

International graduate researchers must commit to spending at least 66 per cent of their time in Melbourne during the writing up of articles. Graduate researchers returning to their home country following submission of their thesis are not eligible to apply.

Study level:

Student type:

Study stage type:

Study area:

Need help understanding the process?

Application, how to apply.

Read the Award Information Sheet and submit an online application form.

Applications open:

Applications close:

The information listed here is subject to change without notice. Where we have listed information about jointly run scholarships programs, please also see our partners' websites. Information describing the number and value of scholarships awarded is indicative.

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• School of Biomedical Sciences

Improving how we study neuroscience through a PhD

Dr Erin O'Callaghan discusses her experience in biomedical sciences at the Department of Anatomy & Physiology - and life after graduate research.

Today, it is Dr Erin O’Callaghan’s job to ensure global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK promotes its medicines ethically. Her PhD in biomedical sciences helped her build strategic thinking and science communication skills. She learned initiative and resilience by being a world pioneer in applying new gene therapy technology.

Erin was one of the first people in the world to use new gene technologies and techniques in high blood pressure research.

“You're going into a project where there's an unknown space, and you have the potential to find new knowledge that no-one else knows,” Erin says.

Erin completed a PhD in Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences at the University of Melbourne in 2012. Her lab at the D epartment of Anatomy and Physiology in the School of Biomedical Sciences had “wall-to-wall equipment, machines and doodads” for her to experiment with.

I really liked that hands-on learning – being able to think about how you might use the equipment in different ways to ask different questions or to measure different things in your experiments.

Using viruses to understand how brains work

“We were trying to advance the field of how we could study neuroscience – and not just neuroscience within the brain, but how it affects the body and physiology,” Erin says.

Her PhD used a new technology to study neural pathways that contribute to regulating blood pressure and kidney function. The technology used viruses to deliver microRNA-based gene therapies. MicroRNA controls gene expression – how the information in a gene is used by a cell.

We were targeting a very specific gene in a very specific cell type, in a very specific part of the brain.

Professor Andrew Allen’s research group, where Erin did her PhD, were world leaders in this work.

“You often get a lot of failures and you don't really understand why things aren’t working,” Erin says.

While it isn’t always the scientist’s fault when the science doesn’t work in retrospect, Erin wishes she had put less pressure on herself.

“I think cutting myself some slack would have helped by making sure that I let go of things sooner to be able to move on in other aspects of research."

The community approach with people who are going through similar things that you're going through helps...and being in the trenches together, you form some really strong friendships

How a PhD can help build international professional networks

International conferences are another way graduate researchers can form lasting connections.

During her PhD, Erin attended a  Gordon Research Conference in her field, funded by a travel scholarship from the University of Melbourne.

Many international conferences host thousands of delegates but at smaller conferences, like the Gordon Research Conferences, delegates get the opportunity to interact more.

“You're actually eating your breakfast, your lunch, and your dinner with these eminent scientists who are driving your research field."  The experience gave her insight into how senior researchers live and work.

An award from  Hypertension Australia gave Erin another opportunity to travel and for three months she collaborated on research at the  College de France.

Where will a PhD in biomedical sciences lead?

A PhD prepares graduate researchers for roles that require strategic thinking and a PhD in biomedical sciences is especially useful in the pharmaceutical industry.

“You need the ability to think critically, to communicate your views, to communicate science well. You need to have the initiative and the resilience to drive projects to completion,” Erin says.

You need the objective approach where you know when to can a project or proceed with a project that is independent of your emotional involvement in it.

Her supervisor Professor Andrew Allen’s international networks helped Dr O’Callaghan land a postdoctoral fellowship at the  University of Bristol .

“I got to be in the room for the first-in-human use of deep brain stimulation for the treatment of hypertension,” Erin says.

At Bristol, Erin and colleagues developed a new kind of pacemaker for people with heart failure. She co-founded  Ceryx Medical , which owns the rights to the device.

Dr O’Callaghan was somewhat familiar with the commercialisation process thanks to a graduate certificate in commercialising research she completed at the University of Melbourne. The University still offers similar programs to  set graduate researchers on their path to entrepreneurship . But she had mostly been involved in the early stages of medical device development and became curious about what the later stages looked like.

After six years at Bristol, ERin returned to Australia and started a new career at global pharmaceutical and biotechnology company GSK, as a Medical Science Liaison. Today, she is a Scientific Advisor at GSK’s vaccines division.

“I make sure that the information that the company uses to inform doctors complies with the rules and requirements of the  Medicines Australia Code of Conduct . The code makes sure companies can't promote medicines in an unethical way."

These science communication skills have a grounding in her PhD too. Dr O’Callaghan had many opportunities to present her research at the University of Melbourne through initiatives like  Visualise Your Thesis .

You do have to challenge yourself to do these things. Being part of a PhD is having opportunities regularly to develop skills...one of the good things that I did was to put my hand up for every opportunity.

Learn more about a PhD in Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences

Learn more about  PhD in the Department of Anatomy & Physiology

This article was first published by the University of Melbourne on 13 August 2024.

Read original article

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• MA Research

MA Research (HIST70005)

Masters time-based research On Campus (Parkville)

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About this subject

Contact information, coordinator.

Heather Benbow

This subject is for students admitted in the Master of Arts (Thesis only) at the School of Historical and Philosophical Studies.

It is designed for students to develop advanced skills in carrying out independent and sustained research. The thesis is expected to showcase a critical application of specialised knowledge and contribute independently to the existing scholarship in the chosen area of research.

The normal length of an MA thesis is 30,000 to 50,000 words, exclusive of words in tables, maps, illustration, bibliographies and appendices. Footnotes are included as part of the word limit.

Intended learning outcomes

On completion of this subject, students should be able to have:

• Advanced knowledge and understanding in a chosen specialised area in arts, humanities or social sciences.
• Demonstrated ability to conduct research with a strong emphasis on ethical considerations and rigorous methodologies.
• Advanced technical skills to independently initiate and formulate original research.
• Advanced communication and written skills to present a theoretically sound and methodologically defensible research investigation.
• Capacity to disseminate research findings to a variety of audiences.

Generic skills

On completion of this subject, it is expected that candidates will possess the following generic skills: 

• Critical reasoning and thinking
• Problem solving
• Communication 
• Creativity and innovation 

Last updated: 7 September 2024

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University of Melbourne

The University of Melbourne (UM) Collection comprises material published or produced by the University and its Colleges. The collection includes examination papers, calendars, faculty guides and handbooks, research reports, occasional papers, academic journals, student magazines and newspaper, annual reports and agenda papers. Also included are:

Melbourne University Publishing (MUP) – an almost complete set of titles. The collection covers a range of subjects including social history, politics, history, art and literature.

The University of Melbourne Thesis Collection consists of archival copies of all Masters by Research and PhD theses completed at the University up to 2017. University of Melbourne hard-copy theses are not available for loan. Instead they can be read in the Reading Room in the Baillieu Library. Requests for theses must be made online prior to visiting .

Currently, theses submitted from 2017 onwards have only digital copies available. These are automatically stored in the  Institutional Repository . The University of Melbourne is working to make the entirety of its Thesis Collection accessible online.

The collection holds very limited Honours theses: these are either available via the library catalogue or by request to departmental offices or libraries.

Graduate Research Hub

• Preparing my thesis

Incorporating your published work in your thesis

A streamlined procedure has been approved for obtaining co-author authorisation.  You now only need to provide a Declaration for publication incorporated in a thesis form for the inclusion of in progress or published material in the thesis, that is completed by your Principal Supervisor and the Coordinating Author.

Accepted statuses for publications

• Unpublished material not submitted for publication
• Submitted for publication to [publication name] on [date]
• In revision following peer review by [publication name]
• Accepted for publication by [publication name] on [date]
• Published by [publication name] on [date]

You may include in progress or published material written during your enrolment upon approval from your advisory committee, as part of your thesis, by having either:

• “included publications", in which your publications are included as components that are distinct from the rest of the thesis, in the format described below; or
• “included material” that is drawn from your publications and combined with text that is otherwise written specifically for the thesis.

In this page we refer to both these kinds of inclusion of published work as “incorporated publications”; the first format, where the publications are included as distinct components, is also known as “thesis with publications”.

The  Graduate Research Training Policy (section 4.65) outlines what can be included in the thesis. Your thesis must include a literature review that clearly details the research questions and a general discussion that integrates the work and places the publications into the context of the research question.

You may have to supplement the incorporated publications with additional methods sections as they are often abbreviated in published articles. You are also encouraged to include any data and discussion that was omitted from the article as an addendum in the thesis. Where a publication is included as a distinct component, you are also encouraged to include a critical reflection on the work, which could, for example, acknowledge or address limitations or impacts of the work that have appeared since publication.

When submitting your thesis, you will be required to confirm that:

(a) the work in the incorporated publications is your own, and (b) that any co-authors give permission for the article to be included in the thesis.

To do this, you must complete the  Declaration for publication incorporated in a thesis form.  You will need to submit a completed form for each in progress or published work included in your thesis.

Your principal supervisor must sign the Declaration form for each publication.  Where there is more than one author of a publication, at least one co-author by agreement amongst the authors, should be nominated as the coordinating author (also known as corresponding author), as defined in the University’s Authorship Policy . The coordinating author is responsible for communication between the publishers and managing communication between the co-authors. The coordinating author must maintain records of any authorship agreement.  The coordinating author must also sign the Declaration form.

You must upload all completed Declaration forms as a single combined file to the Thesis Examination System when submitting your thesis for examination.  The signed forms should not be included in the thesis itself. Plan well ahead to obtain the required signatures to avoid delays to your examination.

Don’t forget to include your ORCID when submitting your work to publishers, conference organisers, etc.  This will help you to distinguish your research activities and outputs, and make sure you get credit for your work throughout your career.

The Preface

As detailed in the  Preparation of Graduate Research Theses rules , your preface should outline:

• the publication status of any incorporated publications
• your contribution to any incorporated publications
• any work carried out in collaboration with others
• editorial assistance received
• parts of the work completed outside of your candidature.

There is no prescribed format for a preface; you may wish to include a written description or a table outlining the tasks performed by others and the proportion of the contribution as a percentage.

Usually this means you will have written the initial draft and you performed any subsequent editing in response to co-authors' and editors' reviews.

As specified in the Graduate Research Training Policy , your principal supervisor and coordinating author must declare that:

(a) you are the primary author of the included material, and

(b) you contributed more than 50% of the work towards the publication.

No. You need to have contributed more than 50 per cent for it to be included. You could, however, include this paper as an appendix.

Yes. It is understood that portions of the thesis that have been published or accepted for publication will have been through an editorial process. Such editorial changes should be explicitly acknowledged.

Refer to the Authorship page for information about the requirements and responsible practice.

Format of the thesis

When including complete publications, you should use the author accepted manuscripts of articles that have been accepted or published. This is the final draft as accepted by the publishers, including any changes based on referees’ suggestions before it has undergone copy-editing, typesetting and proofing. If you are certain you will not breach your agreement with your publisher, you may include the published version in your thesis.

If you are using your author accepted manuscript, while some journals request that the version you send them includes any figures or tables at the end of the submitted document, when you reproduce the article in your thesis you should place them where they logically flow within the text. It is also recommended that you use similar formatting (e.g. line spacing, font type and size) as the rest of the thesis.

You can view suggested formats for arranging the chapters of a thesis that includes publications as distinct components here . See also example theses in the University of Melbourne repository.

In most cases it is preferred that you include a separate literature survey.  Even with the literature reviews included in your publications you may find you still need to add further supplementary material if the publications do not directly address all the research questions you are trying to answer in your thesis.  Your supervisors and advisory committee are best able to advise you whether the literature reviews included in your incorporated publications will meet disciplinary expectations and satisfy your examiners that you: - Have clearly detailed your research question/s and how they integrate with the current literature - Have demonstrated sufficient familiarity with, and understanding and critical appraisal of the relevant literature.

No. The policy allows the thesis to be submitted with publications, it is not a thesis by publication. You must include a literature review that clearly details the research question, and a concluding general discussion that integrates the work and places it into the context of the research questions. You should also introduce each publication that is included as a distinct component, explaining its role in the work, and, where appropriate, provide a critical reflection on its contribution.

Yes, but you must cite it correctly and indicate in the preface the source of the information (eg. that the text on page(s) xx is from [name of publication], or that chapter yy is adapted from [name of publication]. In each case you should give its publication status and your contribution to the publication). It will assist your examiners if, at the start of each chapter that includes work drawn from a publication, there is a footnote explaining where the work came from and how it has been used in the chapter. You may wish to include the entire publication as an appendix so that your examiners can see where the material came from.

• Theses which include publications in a “thesis with publications” style can typically be slightly shorter; for example the typical PhD length is 80,000 words, but a PhD including publications as distinct components has a typical length of 50,000-80,000 words).
• While the writing style may be more concise, there is no difference in the expected volume and requirements of work presented in theses with publications. The examination criteria remain the same whether or not publications are incorporated. Your examiners are asked to consider your thesis on its merits as an independent piece of research. Refer to the information available for examiners .
• Maximum limits apply to all theses.

If you are including the list of references as part of the publication they do not need to be repeated in the overall reference list/bibliography for the thesis.

Incorporated publications can be referenced via a footnote, but if references to them are included in the bibliography an examiner may be unsure as to whether the work was completed as part of the research.

No, but you may do so if you think that it will assist readers of your thesis.

It is up to you whether you update the publication style or not. Whatever you chose, you should acknowledge your choice in the Preface, stating the differences between the publication and thesis, due to the requirements of different publishers.

Yes. Revised and resubmitted theses are examined in their entirety and the inclusion of a new incorporated publication may strengthen your response to examiners.

In most cases you should include the latest version, up to the author accepted version and update the publication status in the preface. If your examiners request changes which conflict with the editorial or peer review advice you have since received from your publisher, you may choose to address this elsewhere in your thesis, or in your written response to the examiners’ reports.

Publication suitability

A work is suitable for inclusion if the research was conducted and the publication was in progress or published during your enrolment in your current degree. This includes:

You may need to supplement this with analysis of literature published between writing the article and submitting your thesis.

All methods need to be covered to a high degree of detail in your thesis.

• literature reviews where you are the primary author .
• systematic reviews of a research question as a results chapter.
• a protocol paper involving novel method development.
• material exploring key methodological issues .

No. Only work completed during your candidature can be included in the thesis. You can cite your earlier work just like you would any work that is relevant to your research. The work should be listed in the preface of your thesis.

Yes. You will need to clearly acknowledge in the preface that its status is ‘in progress’ or, that the paper has been published but not peer reviewed.

Completing the forms

Yes. You may wish to include the entire publication as an appendix so that your examiner can see where the information came from.

Yes. All sections of the form must be completed for any multi-authored material. The coordinating author is required to reassure that all co-authors have had an opportunity to agree to the inclusion of the material in the thesis and to the contribution declared on the form. The authorship agreement template is available here.

No. You can use the figure in your thesis without completing the form but you should acknowledge the origin of the figure in the preface and appropriately cite the publication in your thesis.

No. You should provide this evidence to your advisory committee when you are discussing the proposed format for your thesis. Your principal supervisor must sign the  Declaration for publication incorporated in a thesis form which confirms their agreement to the inclusion of any publication/s.  The coordinating author will need to sign the form for any multi-authored material.

You can use Adobe Acrobat's 'Combine Files' tool which will allow you to combine files of different file types into a PDF. Alternatively, you can open a PDF copy of a file and then use the 'Organise Pages' tool which will allow you to drag additional pages where you can then save it as a single file.

iThenticate report

You should run your whole thesis through iThenticate, including the chapters comprised wholly or partly of your published work.  You can then exclude the specific matching publication source/s that correspond to the publications you have included in your thesis in a “thesis with publications” style. This means that the thesis chapter or publication is reviewed against the other literature in the repository, but not matched to itself. You should only exclude matching sources that are articles which you have appropriately included.  You should outline and explain any filters and exclusions you applied in iThenticate in an accompanying declaration which you can also upload to TES.

You should not exclude publications from which you have included material (but not the complete publication), as the iThenticate report will then show where the material is present in the thesis, allowing your supervisors and Chair of Examiners to verify that it has been included appropriately.

Further information on the use of iThenticate can be found here: https://gateway.research.unimelb.edu.au/funding-contracts-and-ethics/ethics-and-integrity/research-integrity/ithenticate-text-matching-tool

The examination

The criteria for examination remain the same whether or not publications are incorporated. See the Graduate Research Training Policy for more information. You can also view the information for examiners here: https://gradresearch.unimelb.edu.au/staff#examiner-information .

If the publication status of your article changes between submission for examination and submission of your final thesis, it is appropriate to include the most recent version (up to the author-accepted version). You should also update the preface to reflect the new status. If you are submitting a list of corrections for approval and/or resubmitting for re-examination you should also note this in your index of changes.

Examples of theses with publications

The following are theses available openly or with University of Melbourne log-in through the University of Melbourne repository that include publications as distinct components in a “thesis with publications” style.

Al Zein, Eza (2019). Taskscape: Caring for Migrant Materials . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/235841

Arundel, Jonathan Paul (2015) The spatio-temporal distribution of honey bees and floral resources in Australia . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/59612

Bamford, Nicholas James (2016) Relationships between diet, obesity and insulin dysregulation in horses and ponies. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/148423

Bibb, Jennifer Louise (2016) Musical recovery: the role of group singing in regaining healthy relationships with music to promote mental health recovery. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/124271

Burfurd, Ingrid Ellen (2018) Beliefs and learning in the laboratory: essays in experimental economics . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/219180

Fan, Yi (2019) Quantification of mandibular morphological changes in 3D . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/225588

Kriesner, Peter (2017) Wolbachia fitness benefits and symbiont interactions in Drosophila . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/207959

Mody, Fallon (2019) Doctors down under: European medical migrants in Victoria (Australia), 1930-60 .   http://hdl.handle.net/11343/221550

Nencini, Sara (2018) Tackling bone pain at the source: identifying and exploring new therapeutic targets . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/216858

Pan, Xuan (2018) Graphene quantum dot based electronic devices . http://hdl.handle.net/11343/222013

Seibt, Susanne (2018) In-situ investigations of molecular self-assembly using microfluidics. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/214671

Smith, Merryn (2018) Non-structural carbohydrate storage and use in eucalypt trees of south-east Australia. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/221163

Uddin, Shihab (2019) Functional aspects of root and leaf development in dryland crop water use under elevated CO2 .   http://hdl.handle.net/11343/219849

Vahedi, Andisheh (2018) The work-family interface and child mental health: longitudinal associations via family functioning across childhood. http://hdl.handle.net/11343/217236

Al Zein, Eza (2019) Taskscape: Caring for Migrant Materials .  http://hdl.handle.net/11343/235841

Schlichthorst, Marisa (2020)   Engaging men in conversations about masculinity and suicide – An evaluation of the Man Up social media campaign .   http://hdl.handle.net/11343/265962

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