Publishing your doctoral thesis from the University of Bonn
If you are a doctoral student at the University of Bonn looking to get your doctoral thesis published, these web pages will tell you all you need to know.
We, the dissertations department of the USL, will assist you through the publication process. With us you can, among other things, publish your thesis online on the bonndoc publication server. We will be happy to advise you and, for example, check the PDF file of your doctoral thesis in respect of all the formal publication requirements. This will let you avoid potential problems before they occur.
This website gives you a general overview of your options for publishing a doctoral thesis at the University of Bonn.
However, the formal regulations and the number of printed copies that you will need to submit (“obligatory copies”) will vary from faculty to faculty. You should therefore always ask your doctoral office about the specific requirements for your doctoral examination procedure as well.
Publication options
Getting your doctoral thesis published is an essential and integral part of the doctoral examination procedure. In consultation with your doctoral supervisor, you can choose from a range of options for publishing your doctoral thesis and thus making it available to researchers at large:
PLEASE NOTE: Changes for all publications from publication year 2024 onwards
From the year of publication 2024, i.e. for all publications from 1 January 2024, printed copies for the USL are no longer required if you publish online on the bonndoc publication server. In addition, it is generally no longer possible to publish copies you have had printed yourself.
Our dissertations department team will be happy to answer any questions you may have. If in doubt, please contact the doctoral office of your faculty.
You can publish your doctoral thesis for free on our bonndoc publication server. This will make your work available all over the world in an open-access format.
Please note: Since 1 January 2024, the publication of copies you have had printed yourself is generally no longer possible or distribution is no longer carried out by the USL. Please publish your dissertation online on our bonndoc server or use a commercial publisher. Our dissertations department team will be happy to answer any questions you may have. If in doubt, please contact the doctoral office of your faculty.
If you do not want to publish your thesis online on bonndoc or as a book with a publisher, you have the option of only producing printed copies yourself instead (from a printer's or copy shop). We distribute the copies that you give us to the German National Library and to university libraries in Germany and abroad. This counts as a publication.
Some doctoral theses contain journal articles or other scientific contributions in complete form that you have already published with a publisher or submitted for publication.
Nevertheless, the doctoral thesis as a whole will still need to be published after the doctoral examination procedure is complete. As the publishers may hold relevant rights, however, you will need to check your rights of use beforehand or your faculty will allow you to remove the articles before publication of the entire thesis.
As a basic principle, you have the same publication options as for monograph doctoral theses:
- Publishing online on our bonndoc publication server
- Using a publisher (this is fairly rare for cumulative doctoral theses)
- Publishing copies you have had printed yourself (usually only a reduced number of 3 to 5 copies required)
As well as doctoral theses, we are also happy to publish habilitation theses (postdoctoral theses) from the University of Bonn on bonndoc and receive printed copies of such theses.
Guides, FAQs and tips
You can publish your doctoral thesis as soon as you have completed your oral examination and been granted permission to print. Even while you are still writing your thesis, however, it is a good idea to start thinking about its upcoming publication.
The following web pages contain step-by-step guides and many more useful tips on all the various publication methods.
Publishing online on bonndoc
Using a publisher
[USUALLY NO LONGER POSSIBLE] Publishing copies you have had printed yourself
Cumulative doctoral theses/doctoral theses that include articles: a special case
Habilitation theses: another special case
631
doctoral theses received in 2023
426
of them online on bonndoc
7,400+
theses online on bonndoc since 1999
Contact
Dissertations department
We receive all the doctoral theses written at the University of Bonn, publish theses online and help doctoral students through the publication process.
Availability by e-mail and phone: Monday to Friday, 9 am to 4 pm.
Address
MNL Branch Library
Friedrich-Hirzebruch-Allee 4
53115 Bonn
2nd floor, room 2.013
On-site appointments only by prior arrangement!
See also
Research Data Service Center
This tells you everything you need to know about organizing, publishing and archiving the research data that you have accumulated during your doctorate.
Open Access Service Center
Here you can find more details about open-access scientific publishing.
ORCID iD - Identifying authors
Create an ORCID iD for free so that all your scientific publications can be associated with you and nobody else, even if you change your surname, for instance.