Copyright when you are a PhD student
Using your articles in your PhD Thesis
Multiple authors and ownership
A PhD thesis can only have one author, but articles used in the thesis can have several authors. To use such an article in your thesis, you will need written declarations from each co-author confirming what parts of the article were authored by you.
Moreover, the copyright to co-authored articles is usually shared by the authors, so you should get permission from your co-authors to use the parts written by them in your thesis. This applies even if the copyright to the article has been transferred to a journal/publisher, collaborator or employer.
A note on timing: If an article has several authors and more than one co-author wishes to use the article in his/her respective PhD thesis, this may lead to a rush to “get there first”. It happens rarely, but it is still important to check with your PhD supervisor to learn what rules apply – and you should agree with your co-authors on how you wish to handle using the article in more than one thesis.
What about using my articles in my thesis?
If your PhD thesis contains articles, three copyright scenarios could apply:
- If the article has been published in a journal or other publication:
The copyright will almost always have been transferred to the journal/publisher.
This is usually unproblematic in the context of writing your PhD thesis, as many Copyright Transfer Agreements (CTAs) clearly state that the use of articles in PhD theses. If the CTA does not directly allow the use of the article in a thesis, simply contact the journal/publisher. You will then be told how to proceed in this matter, often you will just have to fill out a form at the publisher website.
Remember that a PHD thesis must be publicly available prior to its defense.
- If the article has been submitted to accepted by a journal:
The copyright will typically have been transferred to the journal/publisher during the submission process.
You will need to contact the journal/publisher and get written permission to include the article in the thesis before publishing it in the journal. This is usually acceptable as long as you do not publish the article elsewhere, e.g., in another journal or at a conference, but publishers have different views on this, so make sure to check their policies before handing in your thesis at DTU.
Remember that all PhD theses must be made available to the public. It is strongly suggested that you address this issue during the Copyright Transfer Agreements (CTA) negotiations or when contacting the journal/publisher.
- If the manuscript has not yet been submitted to a journal:
The copyright belongs to you, since you haven’t transferred it to the journal/publisher by signing Copyright Transfer Agreements (CTA).
On the plus side, you can use comments from your defense to improve the article before submitting it to a publisher. Please note however that your thesis will be made publicly available in DTU Orbit after the PhD defense and that this may prevent you from publishing the article at a later stage.
Most journals will check submitted articles for text similarities with scholarly databases and other online content and some journals may refuse to publish articles from your thesis on the grounds that the article has appeared “in public” already.
Publishers have different policies on this. Some define articles appearing in a thesis as a form of “prior-publication”. Others simply consider the manuscript a kind of pre-print and its publication similar to uploading the manuscript to a pre-print server. In other words, make sure to check the guidelines of the journals/publishers to whom you are considering submitting your manuscripts. And do so before you hand in your thesis at DTU.
Remember that all PhD theses must be made available to the public.
