Thesis submission

Last reviewed 18 September 2026

Lodge a Notification of Intention to Submit in GRIS at least two months before you plan to submit. UNSW starts arranging your examiners when you lodge it.

The maximum length of a PhD is four years of full-time enrolment, counted from the day you started, so a Term 1 start falls due at the start of Term 1 four years later. Approved leave and part-time enrolment push the date out, so work from your own commencement date rather than counting terms. If you are going to run over, you need approved overtime enrolment, which takes a progress review and a completion plan, so raise it with the PGC early.

If you are at all uncertain about your submission timeline, contact the PGC.

Your examiners are appointed before you submit

Your panel is two examiners from outside UNSW, at least one of them normally from outside Australia, and a panel chair from UNSW who runs the examination but does not examine you, usually an academic from the School of Economics. You are told their names.

Your primary supervisor also has to complete a Supervisor's Certificate in GRIS before the thesis can go out, which includes running the final version through iThenticate. Ask them to do it early.

What catches people out

Code and data must sit on a UNSW-managed platform. A link to a GitHub repository is not acceptable for examination. Upload a fixed snapshot as a file in GRIS, up to 500 MB, and say in the thesis where it is and what is in it.
No signatures and no declarations in the thesis. The abstract, Originality Statement and Inclusion of Publications Statement are all completed in GRIS. Older theses have them bound in at the front, which is no longer allowed, so do not copy the front matter of an older thesis.
Disclose editorial assistance and any use of AI in your acknowledgements. Changes a journal's copy editors made to a chapter you have published count as editorial assistance.
List the publications and presentations that came out of your research in the front matter, as well as declaring them in GRIS.
If you hold an RTP scholarship, the prescribed acknowledgement sentence is compulsory. Copy it from the current Thesis Format Guide, not from an older thesis: it now contains a DOI.

If any of your chapters are papers, read using publications in your thesis.

Templates

LaTeX thesis style files (UNSW Moodle login required). With thanks to Barton Lee and Johannes Hoelzemann. Check the front matter against the current Format Guide before you use it.
Response to Examiners form (Word). You need this after the examination, not before.

The rules

Format, word limits and front matter are in the Thesis Format Guide. The examination process, and the rules on copyright, embargoes and public access, are in the HDR Examination Instruction.