Grace period
A grace period is additional time to finish writing the thesis, normally granted as a full 12 months with an annual fee. Your target should still be submission by your standard end date.
Eligibility and cohort
- You must have, or be very close to having, sufficient data for full write-up. Wrapping up data gathering/generation cannot exceed eight weeks.
- Funders that do not permit submission beyond standard registration can prevent eligibility.
- PhD by Published Works has no grace period.
- §4.1 states that students registered before March 2025, except Published Works, receive the grace period automatically. Later text calls grace “never automatic”, and the forms page describes RD19 as for “2025/6 students onwards”. Confirm your cohort and recorded approval rather than relying on an assumption.
Application
Submit RD19 with your final standard-registration RD6. If that RD6 is less than three months before the standard end because of a non-standard start or study breaks, apply with the penultimate RD6.
Include a detailed work schedule: status of incomplete chapters, actual remaining tasks and realistic time required. A bare chapter list is insufficient. Submit the corresponding thesis draft to Turnitin at application.
The framework says School RDC decides RD19, while D3.2/D5.1 describe RDEB/Convenor discretion. Ask the School/Operations Team to confirm routing and your authorised end date. See Source differences and clarifications.
Conditions
- Focus on completing the thesis, not parallel publication writing, new research, conference papers or event organisation.
- University paid work can continue under the normal caps.
- Students in grace cannot be student representatives.
- Everyone has twice-yearly RD6 reviews.
- Study mode cannot be changed once in grace.
- A full annual fee applies regardless of how much you use; normally the student pays it.
- Plan supervisor feedback and your response time in advance. Waiting for feedback or responding to it is not accepted as grounds for a further extension at grace end.
Further time requires exceptional extension, not another assumed grace period.
Sources: Framework §§4.1, 4.5, 3.4, pp. 24, 37–39, 44; D3.2/D5.1. Read the source.