Finding theses

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:

Other useful theses databases​

Need help with referencing theses?

Visit the Re:cite guide to referencing

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