Submitting Your Dissertation
Program Submission
Students must submit their dissertation by the date established by their program (generally six to eight weeks prior to the Registrar’s Office dissertation submission deadline) and follow the program’s instructions on the number of copies to submit and format (bound or unbound).
Please note: Students are responsible for notifying their department of any requested embargoes that were approved at the time of online submission.
Thesis Acceptance Certificate
Students must complete a thesis acceptance certificate (sometimes referred to as the dissertation acceptance certificate), which includes the title of the dissertation and signatures of at least three advisors approved by the student’s program and whose membership follows the Harvard Kenneth C. Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences (Harvard Griffin GSAS) policies on the Dissertation Advisory Committee. Electronic signatures from committee members are acceptable. If a TAC is submitted with electronic signatures, an additional TAC with handwritten signatures will not be required. A document version of the certificate is available if needed.
The title and the student name on the thesis acceptance certificate must read exactly as it does on the title page of the dissertation, meaning if you use your full middle name or middle initial on one document, it must be the same on the other document. The thesis acceptance certificate must also be uploaded as a separate "Administrative Document" when submitting the electronic dissertation to ProQuest ETD. All thesis/dissertation acceptance certificates are forwarded to the Harvard University Archives.
A copy of the signed thesis acceptance certificate should appear before the title page of the online dissertation submission; no page number should be assigned to the thesis/dissertation acceptance certificate. The thesis/dissertation acceptance certificate will be included in all copies of the dissertation.
Registrar’s Office Submission
Students must submit their dissertation in PDF format to the FAS Registrar’s Office through ProQuest ETD by the deadline established for each degree conferral date (see the Degree Calendar or the Registrar’s Office website. Major formatting errors that are not corrected in a timely manner may prevent you from receiving your degree. During the submission process, students are asked to upload a separate copy of the signed thesis/dissertation acceptance certificate, approve two license agreements, and complete two surveys (the Harvard Griffin GSAS Employment Exit Survey and the Survey of Earned Doctorates). If you are requesting an embargo of more than two years, you will need to submit a signed approval form from the department's director of graduate studies (DGS) with your dissertation submission.
Redaction and Editing
Ordinarily, students and alumni may not edit their dissertation once the submission deadline has passed. The FAS Registrar's Office will review the submissions to ProQuest ETD after the deadline, but prior to degree conferral, for formatting policy compliance. If errors are identified, students are given a brief window prior to degree conferral to make these limited formatting changes.
In very rare cases, a dissertation may require redaction, which is the process of obscuring or removing sensitive information for distribution. If sensitive or potentially harmful material appears in the dissertation (e.g., commercially sensitive information, sensitive personal data, risk of harmful retribution, etc.), a student should contact the Office for Scholarly Communication.
In exceptional circumstances, in order to correct discrete errors caught after the formal submission of the dissertation, the author may request permission to submit an errata statement. The request will be reviewed by a committee assembled by the Dean of the Harvard Griffin Graduate School of Arts and Sciences that includes at least one faculty member from the author’s disciplinary area.
Forms
Thesis Acceptance Certificate
Contact Info
Registrar's Office
Faculty of Arts and Sciences
Harvard University
Richard A. and Susan F. Smith Campus Center Office
1350 Massachusetts Avenue, Suite 450
Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138
Tel: 617-495-1543
Fax: 617-495-0815
Office Hours: 10:30 a.m.-4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday
For additional questions, please send us a message.