Who owns copyright to graduation works?
Copyright to scholarly work produced by academic staff such as PhD dissertations, journal articles, books and monographs belongs to the creator and not the employer (university).
Students own copyright to their theses, unless there is a written agreement to transfer the copyright to the University, or research supervisor, or the commercial enterprise where the research has been carried out. Where research has been carried out in collaboration with trade or industry, it is important that agreement is reached over the ownership of the copyright in the research beforehand.
All PhD dissertations are normally made available to the general public. Open access to the digital version of your PhD thesis is offered via the TU/e Repository.
PhD thesis as a monograph
Are you planning to publish your PhD dissertation as a monograph? A publisher might restrict immediate open access to the digital version of your dissertation. In that case you can file a request for a temporary embargo. If your dissertation is to be published as a commercial edition, always contact the Data Management and Library via Library.PhDThesis@tue.nl. Include the contract you signed with the publisher in your mail. Specialists at DML can then assist you to consider options to offer your dissertation in digital form.
PhD thesis as separate articles
Are you publishing journal articles that will become part of your PhD dissertation? Then you can request a temporary embargo. Normally, publishers do not restrict inclusion of the articles in a PhD dissertation, nor do they usually consider PhD dissertation as a prior publication. However, we advise you to always carefully read your publishing contract and, if needed, inform a publisher that the article will be part of your PhD dissertation and will be published open access via TU/e repository.