Publishing PhD and Habilitation Theses

• free of charge
• fast in time
• worldwide visibility through search engines and library catalogues
• unique citation through DOI
• higher awareness of your publication due to free accessibility
• The TIB ensures the long-term preservation and the DOI assignment of your publication for permanent access and citation.
• Your publication will be listed and integrated into the German National Library's catalogue
• By publishing in the LUH repository, you fulfil all open access funding requirements of the DFG, the BMBF and the EU.

2a. Self-publication or publication in a self-publishing house

If you choose this way to publish your PhD thesis, please submit six copies on age-resistant, wood and acid-free paper, durable bound. Please dispense with using plastic.

We also require a reprint licence (Appendix II).

(Appendix II).

2b. Book or research report published in a publishing house

Please submit three copies.  

If you have edited the defended dissertation or habilitation thesis for publication, we also require two original manuscripts.

2c. Institute publication

Please submit six copies. For certain institutional series, the TIB receives additional copies (6-10 copies depending on the series) for interlibrary exchange. Please contact your faculty or the TIB (hochschulschriftentibeu)  to find out the number of additional copies required.

Yes, this is generally possible. If you publish your thesis in a publishing house, you will sign an agreement that regulates your rights to the publication. Make sure that you retain the right to secondary publication (also known as "green open access" or "self-archiving"). We can help you to interpret draft agreements and negotiate with the publisher - it's best to ask us before you sign!

If you have already signed an agreement, we will check your eligibility for self-archiving. If necessary, we will be happy to contact the publisher on your behalf. If you have any questions about secondary publication, please contact the Repositories group.

Your research data can be published in the repository together with your thesis. Please upload your research data as a separate file.

Please check this page before publishing your research data.

Please log in to the repository with your LUH e-mail address. You can generate a password using the forgotten password function.

If you no longer have an LUH e-mail address, we can create an account for you. To do so, please contact hochschulschriftentibeu.

Select the collection 'Dissertations & Habilitations > Dissertations', please enter the metadata in the upload form and upload your dissertation as well as associated research data.

Please submit your thesis as a PDF file (our recommendation: PDF-A, see Introductory information on the PDF/A standard) and provide us at least 3 keywords in German and English, the title and an abstract in German and English.

You first upload the PDF file to a non-publicly accessible cache on the publication server. Your work will then be checked by us, approved and thus made publicly accessible. Any embargoes you may have requested will be taken into account. Finally, we will send a certificate of submission to your doctoral office.

The publication agreement ("Appendix I") offers the following licences to choose from:

• Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Germany
• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Germany
• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Germany
• Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivatives 3.0 Germany

If no free licence has been selected, the following applies:
The author grants the TIB the following rights of use: (1) the non-exclusive, perpetual right of use for publication on the Internet in the LUH repository, the server of the German National Library, servers of other libraries, archives and aggregators (e.g. Google Books) and (2) the non-exclusive, perpetual right of use for the metadata to verify the publication in relevant bibliographic databases. This licence is not considered Open Access-compliant and is not recommended for dissertations.

6. a What is text and data mining?

Text and data mining is the automated analysis of one or more digital or digitized works to extract information, in particular patterns, trends and correlations.

6. b Why do we offer the CC-BY licence 3.0 Germany and not CC-BY 4.0 International?

The Creative Commons licences (CC licences) of version "3.0 Germany" are adapted to German law. The wording of the limitation of liability clause in the CC licences of versions 3.0 Unported and 4.0 International does not, for example, fulfil the requirements of German consumer protection law in Section 309 No. 7 of the German Civil Code (BGB) according to the current legal situation: CC licences are classified as general terms and conditions (Mantz, Reto, "Creative Commons-Lizenzen im Spiegel internationaler Gerichtsverfahren", GRUR Int. 2008, 20, 21). As a rule, the contractual partners are consumers to whom the provisions on general terms and conditions apply. Liability for injury to life, limb and health may not be limited. This was not taken into account in the wording of the limitation of liability clause. Even if it should be taken into account that the CC licences are designed for worldwide use, that the particularities of all national laws cannot be taken into account and that injury to life, limb and health will be rare, there is currently no case law or legal basis that declares the provision of Section 309 No. 7 BGB inapplicable in this context.  (Brehm, Elke, "Guidelines on text and data mining for research purposes in Germany", DOI: https://doi.org/10.34657/9388 , p.20)

If images are "cited" - i.e. they are analysed and discussed and are not merely decorative - the image citation right applies. The thesis as a whole can also be published under a CC licence. However, care must be taken to ensure that the relevant images are labelled as protected material. Ideally, this should be done directly below the image, e.g. in the form of "Fig. 1, title, source, © Publisher XY". In addition, you can add a note at the beginning or end of the publication, such as "This thesis is published under licence XY. Exceptions are illustrations, which are marked with an appropriate copyright notice". If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact us: TIB Publikationsberatung

In justified individual cases (e.g. ongoing patent proceedings or contractual reasons), your thesis may be published at a later date. The request for such suspension must be sent to the TIB with an explanatory statement, countersigned by the head of the faculty (dean), the academic supervisor and the applicant. With written permission, you can enter the embargo date when uploading your thesis to the repository. If you submit printed copies, they will only be visible in the catalogue and available for loan after the embargo period has expired.

After this procedure, a certificate of submission will be sent to your doctoral office.

Yes, this is possible. The LUH repository is available for digital secondary publication (self-archiving). Digital access to your PhD thesis has many advantages (see FAQ1). If your thesis has been published by a publishing house, you will need to consider the terms of your author's agreement made with the publisher (see FAQ 3).

If your thesis is also published by a publisher after publication in the LUH repository, three printed copies must be submitted to the TIB. If your thesis is published in an institutional publication series, six printed copies must be submitted to the TIB.

For the following series, we require additional copies for the interlibrary exchange:

• Institute of Geotechnics. Communications: 9
• Institute of Mechanics of Structures and Computational Mechanics, Research and Seminar Report: 7
• Institute of Urban Water Management and Waste Technology, Publications: 10
• Institute of Continuum Mechanics: 8
• Scientific papers of the Department of Geodesy and Geoinformatics: 6

Yes and no: The first digital publication must be made via the LUH repository. Therefore, you grant TIB a non-exclusive right of utilization, i.e. you may also make the thesis - in whole or in part - available on other platforms, repositories, in other formats or publish it with a publisher after publication in the LUH repository.

We recommend the following naming convention:

Dissertation_Surname_Firstname_year_of_publication or Habilitation_Surname_Firstname_year_of_publication

and for attached research data:

Dissertation_Surname_Firstname_year_of_publication_research_data

Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Universität Hannover awards the following academic degrees through the faculties due to doctorate:

• Doktorin der Naturwissenschaften / Doktor der Naturwissenschaften / Dr. rer. nat.
• Doktorin der Gartenbauwissenschaften / Doktor der Gartenbauwissenschaften / Doctor rerum horticulturarum / Dr. rer. hort.
• Doktorin der Rechtswissenschaften / Doktor der Rechtswissenschaften / Dr. iur.
• Doktorin der Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Doktor der Wirtschaftswissenschaften / Dr. rer. pol.
• Doktorin der Philosophie / Doktor der Philosophie / Dr. phil.

Honorary doctorates are not listed here.

Please also consult the doctoral degree regulations of your faculty.