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Your examination

On this page you will find information about how your thesis, portfolio and, where relevant, other materials will be examined. You can navigate to information about the preparation and submission of your thesis via the menu on the left of this page.

Your examiners

Your examiners will not be formally appointed until you submit your notification of intention to submit; you must give at least two months notice of your intention to submit, and failure to do so will result in delays to your examination (see Preparing and submitting your thesis).

Your thesis will be examined by two examiners (normally one internal and one external), unless you are or have been a member of academic staff at Sussex (grade 7 or above), in which case you will be examined by two external examiners. Your examiners are nominated by your supervisors and their recommendation is considered by the Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) or nominee(s) before being passed on to the Research Degrees Progression and Award Board (RDPAB) for approval.

Your viva

In addition to submitting your thesis, portfolio and, where relevant, other materials prescribed for the research degree concerned, you are required to attend a viva voce examination or 'viva'.

Purpose

The viva allows your examiners the opportunity to explore and to satisfy themselves that: your thesis represents a substantial original contribution to knowledge or understanding (for PhD candidates), or a recognisable original contribution to knowledge or understanding (for MPhil candidates); you are well-acquainted with the general field of knowledge to which your research related (for PhD candidates, or you have a comprehensive knowledge of the relevant part or aspect of the field of study (for MPhil candidates); there is evidence of training in, and the application of, appropriate research methods; the work submitted is your own (or, if done in collaboration, that the your share in the research is adequate); and the mode of presentation is satisfactory. The viva also allows you the opportunity to respond to any shortcomings identified by the examiners.

Attendees

In accordance with UK norms, vivas at Sussex are 'closed', with only you and your examiners present. At your request, and with the consent of the examiners, your supervisor or another member of academic or professional support staff approved by your Faculty's Associate Dean (Research and Innovation), or nominee(s), may be present at your viva as a silent observer. In some circumstances (e.g. if you have two external examiners), an Independent Chair may be appointed to oversee the examination process. 

Timing and attendance

Your viva will normally be held within three months of the submission of your thesis. If you will be unavailable at any point within this period of time, you should make this known when you submit your thesis.

Your internal examiner will contact you to arrange a mutually convenient time to hold your viva. If you do not engage in this correspondence, or do not attend at the agreed time without good reason, you will not have fulfilled the requirements of the award, and you will therefore automatically fail your degree. If circumstances arise which mean that you cannot attend your viva, you should inform your internal examiner and the Examinations and Assessment team (pgr-exams@sussex.ac.uk) as soon as possible.

The viva should normally be held at the University with all parties present in one room. However, the viva may be conducted with one or more participant joining remotely via an enterprise digital collaboration platform such as Microsoft Teams. Remote vivas must be approved in advance by the RDPAB, unless you are registered as a distance learner. Further information about this can be found in the Procedure on Remote Vivas (Appendix 3 of the Procedures on Research Degrees (PoRD)). The Examinations and Assessment team (pgr-exams@sussex.ac.uk) can also provide advice.

Preparation

Assessment criteria

In order to decide whether you have met the required standard for the degree for which you are being examined, your examiners will be guided by the relevant qualification descriptors produced by the Quality Assurance Agency, which specify standards and characteristics that are expected of those who are awarded PhDs or MPhils. See the information for examiners for further details.

Viva outcomes

The outcome of your examination is based both on the quality of your thesis (or other materials) and your performance in your viva. The examiners will recommend one of the following outcomes:

Outcomes following first (original) submission

If the examiners agree that the requirements for the relevant research degree have been satisfied they may recommend:

• Unconditional Pass: that the degree should be awarded unconditionally. A very small number of minor typographical errors, which can be corrected immediately but do not require checking by the examiners, are permitted.
  
• Pass with Minor Corrections: that the degree should be awarded subject to minor corrections to the thesis, to be completed within three months (for full-time PGRs) or six months (for part-time PGRs) of you receiving the list of corrections, to the satisfaction of the internal examiner (or, where the internal examiner is unavailable or in instances where all examiners are external, another examiner). Minor corrections include spelling/typing errors, textual errors, reordering of material, correction of citations, and correction of figures, tables and diagrams, and the addition of a small number of paragraphs for clarification or qualification.
  
• Pass with Major Corrections: that the degree should be awarded subject to major corrections to the thesis, to be completed within six months (for full-time PGRs) or 12 months (for part-time PGRs) of you receiving the list of corrections, to the satisfaction of the internal examiner (or, where the internal examiner is unavailable, or in instances where all examiners are external, another of the examiners). In addition to the types of minor correction noted above, major corrections may include more substantial addition of paragraphs, including the incorporation of some new material, reordering and restructuring of chapters, or some additional data analyses.

If the examiners agree that the requirements for the relevant research degree concerned have not yet been satisfied, they may recommend:

• Revise and Resubmit: that you are permitted a period not exceeding 12 months (for full-time PGRs) or 24 months (for part-time PGRs) from the date on which you received notification of the revisions to be made, in which to thoroughly revise your thesis for resubmission, using the guidance set out in the examiners’ joint report. You will be liable for a resubmission fee. You will normally be given only one opportunity to revise and resubmit your thesis.

Outcomes following a resubmission

If the examiners agree that the requirements for the relevant research degree have been satisfied they may recommend an Unconditional Pass, a Pass with Minor Corrections, or a Pass with Major Corrections as above.

If the examiners agree that the requirements for the relevant research degree have not been satisfied they may recommend:

• (in the case of PhD candidates, only) that the degree of MPhil should be awarded with no corrections to the thesis;
  
• (in the case of PhD candidates, only) that the degree of MPhil should be awarded subject to minor corrections to the thesis, to be completed within three months (for full-time PGRs) or six months (for part-time PGRs) of you receiving the list of corrections, to the satisfaction of the internal examiner (or, where the internal examiner is unavailable, or in instances where all examiners are external, another of the examiners);
  
• (in the case of PhD candidates, only) that the degree of MPhil should be awarded subject to major corrections to the thesis, to be completed within six months (for full-time PGRs) or 12 months (for part-time PGRs) of you receiving the list of corrections, to the satisfaction of the internal examiner (or, where the internal examiner is unavailable, or in instances where all examiners are external, another of the examiners);
  
• that no degree should be awarded.

Examination following revision and resubmission

You should prepare and submit for examination your revised thesis as per the University’s requirements. You must also pay the required fees before resubmission. Your re-examination will normally be conducted by the same examiners. The decision as to whether or not a second viva will be required is left to the discretion of the examiners. However, a second viva must be offered if the examiners are considering a downgrade (with or without corrections) or a fail outcome. Where a second viva is required, it should take place within three months of the submission of the revised thesis and you must be given at least three weeks' notice.

The role of the Research Degrees Progression and Award Board

In addition to formally appointing your examiners (see above), the Research Degrees Progression and Award Board (RDPAB) considers the recommendations made by examiners on the outcome of the viva. The RDPAB will then make a recommendation to Senate on the award of the degree, and the Examinations and Assessment team will communicate the result to you by email and explain what you need to do next and by when.

Depositing your thesis

On successful completion of the examination process you must submit an electronic copy of your thesis to Sussex's repository, Figshare, where it will be available to the general public in full, for consultation and for reproduction (as permitted in copyright law), unless approval is obtained for embargo or redaction as set out below. This is in line with the University’s commitments to Open Research, as set out in the Open Access webpages. This is known as 'depositing' your thesis and it is a requirement of your degree; your award will not be ratified and your award letter will not be issued if you do not deposit your thesis within the stipulated timeframe. 

Before your deposit your thesis, please ensure that you consult the information here concerning your thesis and open access:

Third-party copyright

Before submitting the electronic copy of your thesis, you should check that you are able to use any third-party material e.g. photographs, images, diagrams, maps and long extracts from other works.

While you are permitted to use third party material in a thesis for the purposes of examination, you do not automatically have permission to make these materials freely available online. Under copyright law, making a thesis available online is considered a form of ‘publishing’ as it makes the work available to the public. Where material is still protected by copyright and its use cannot be justified under a copyright exception, or an applicable open licence, permission must be obtained from the rights holder before it can be included in a thesis. All permission should be obtained in writing and an electronic copy of the correspondence should be submitted along with the electronic copy of your thesis.

If your thesis contains material for which you do not have cleared copyright, the material must be redacted from your deposited thesis. The full version of the thesis on which the award was determined will be retained by the University under permanent embargo. However you must make every effort to obtain copyright during the preparation of your thesis.

Further information on third-party copyright permissions, including what to do if permission is not granted, is available from the LIbrary's copyright guide.

Confidential sources

The following are examples of sources of confidential information which you may encounter:

• information from documents or files which were produced under the authority of a public agency or Government department, and made available by private agencies, such as firms, or individuals, with or without conditions;
• information from letters written by individuals in a public or private capacity which have not been published;
• information from interviews with individuals about the activities and/or personnel of public or private organisations.

 

Any material which is protected by copyright should also be considered to determine whether it is also confidential.

In the course of your research you may obtain information from confidential sources, and then face decisions about how to take account of the information, and how to clear it for publication. The problems should not be put aside until the thesis has been written. It is important to realise that a thesis is legally considered to have been published as soon as it is made available to anyone at all, and therefore it cannot be written as a private document. Your thesis therefore cannot, without permission, include quotations from, or citations of, documents or letters or oral statements which are confidential. If you have obtained confidential information, you should proceed as follows:

• Every effort should be made to find published sources which make points or substantiate data which have been encountered in confidential sources.
• Some institutions allow a researcher to consult records on condition that manuscripts of any material intended for publication are submitted to them for approval prior to publication; in such cases, copies of the letter stating conditions of access and signifying approval of the thesis manuscript should be included when the thesis is submitted for examination.
• You may be given documents or letters held by a private individual who is an employee, or former employee, of some public or private institution. If you wish to quote from or cite documents or letters belonging to such private collectors, you should obtain written permission from the originators of the letters or documents, whether personal or institutional.
• In many cases, the amount of confidential material which you will obtain in the course of your research can be dealt with simply, but if you intend to base your theses to a large extent on such sources, then you should discuss this matter carefully with your supervisor at the outset of your research and continue to review outstanding copyright matters on an annual basis as your thesis progresses, keeping a record of any actions that need to be taken prior to submission.
• The Researcher Development Programme includes regular copyright workshops run by the Library which are specifically intended to assist PGRs by raising awareness and understanding of copyright. 

Thesis access and embargoes

When you submit your thesis, it will be subject to the following arrangements:

1. it will be made available for use in the electronic University Repository, Figshare
2. it will be automatically uploaded to the British Library ‘EThOS’ service and become publicly available for download subject to the acceptance of the EThOS End User Licence Agreement
3. details of your thesis, sometimes including abstracts, are sent to various national, international and subject bodies, and to bibliographies.

 

There may be valid reasons for restricting access to your thesis. Usually this will be for a limited period. Below are some common reasons why you may need to restrict access to your thesis:

• you have an agreement with a publisher to publish all or part of your thesis
• your thesis contains commercially sensitive information that may prejudice the commercial interests of another person or company
• your thesis contains material that was obtained under a promise of confidentiality
• your thesis contains sensitive material about an individual or individuals that may endanger their physical or mental well-being, or your own physical or mental well-being.

 

All requests for an embargo should be discussed in the first instance with your main supervisor who will advise you on how to proceed. Applications for embargo are considered by your Faculty's Associate Dean (Research and Innovation), or nominee(s). Depending on the reason for the request, a thesis may be embargoed for a maximum period of three years, or as otherwise set out in the terms and conditions of the party responsible for funding your research; you and your main supervisor are jointly responsible for adhering to your funder’s terms and conditions, where applicable.

Graduation

Graduation ceremonies are currently held in January and July. You will be sent details of the next appropriate ceremony based on the expected date of your viva. However, given the process of submitting, examining and correcting your thesis typically takes several months, there is no guarantee that you will have completed in time to be eligible to graduate at the ceremony you are sent details of. In order to graduate, you must have no outstanding academic commitments or fees. If you are asked by your examiners to make corrections to your thesis after your viva, these corrections must be completed and approved before you will be eligible to graduate.

See the Graduation pages for more details.