A referral for resubmission is the outcome nobody prepares for, because every guide to the viva stops at corrections. It is not corrections and it is not a fail: your examiners have judged that the thesis, in its examined form, does not yet meet the criteria, and they have given you a fixed period to make it do so. Then they will examine you again.
What follows is the procedure. Research degree regulations differ sharply between institutions on every number below, so read your own code of practice alongside this — but the shape is common, and the parts candidates get wrong are the same everywhere.
Step 1: Establish exactly which outcome you have, and what it permits
The word your institution uses may be “referral”, “revise and resubmit”, “resubmission” or “represent”. What matters is the regulation behind it. UCL’s research degree regulations for 2025-26 state the PhD case precisely: where “the thesis, in its examined form does not substantively meet the criteria”, the examiners “may refer the thesis for resubmission in a revised form, within 18 months, on one occasion only. A resubmission requires a second viva examination.”
Three facts in one sentence, and each surprises people.
- Your window is probably twelve months, and possibly eighteen. UCL’s 18 months for a PhD, EngD, DPA or DBA is unusually generous. Across the 124 UK institutions offering refer-and-resubmit in the UK Council for Graduate Education’s 2022 survey of published regulations, 78% set the limit at up to 12 months, 15% at up to 18 months and 3% at 24. So the twelve is the sector norm and the eighteen is the exception — do not assume you have UCL’s. The figure is not even uniform inside one institution: the same UCL regulations set 12 months for an MPhil resubmission and 12 for an MD(Res). Your institution and your award together determine the clock.
- You get one attempt. “On one occasion only” is not a discouragement, it is a limit. There is no third submission.
- There may be a second viva — and at UCL there certainly is. Many candidates assume a resubmission is read and signed off like corrections. UCL’s regulation says otherwise: a resubmission requires a second oral examination. Sector-wide the position is less predictable. The same UKCGE survey found a second viva mandatory at 12 institutions (10%) and at the examiners’ discretion at 89 (72%), which means that at roughly three-quarters of institutions the decision belongs to your examiners rather than to the rulebook. Prepare for one either way.
Distinguish this clearly from corrections. UCL’s minor-amendments route asks for changes “within six months” and the amended thesis goes “to the designated checker, specified by the examiners on the report” — no second viva, no re-entry. The procedure for that outcome, including a worked response letter, is in our guide to completing PhD corrections.
Expected output: the clause in your own regulations that governs your outcome, printed, with the deadline date and the award it applies to written on it.
Step 2: Understand what the examiners are actually saying
A referral means the thesis does not yet meet the criteria — not that the research is worthless, and not that you have failed. UCL’s list of available outcomes makes the distinction visible: referral sits above two lower outcomes the examiners could have chosen instead. They may, after the examination or the resubmission for a PhD, “determine that a student has not reached the standard required for the intended award” and award the MPhil degree, with “additional minor corrections” possible at that point. Or they may “determine that the student has not satisfied them in the examination and no award will be made”.
Your examiners chose neither. They chose the outcome that says: this can become a doctorate, and here is how long you have.
The substance almost always falls into one of four categories, and identifying yours decides the whole plan.
- The contribution is not visible. The work is there but the thesis never states what is new, or states it in a form the evidence does not support. Often the cheapest referral to fix — our guide to what counts as an original contribution covers how to make the claim explicit.
- A methodological gap. An analysis that was not run, a validity check missing, a design decision not defended. Costly in time but bounded.
- Insufficient data or scope. The most expensive: more fieldwork, more cases, another study. This is the category that consumes a twelve-month window fastest, and the one where an early, honest estimate of the fieldwork duration matters most.
- Structural incoherence. The chapters do not add up to one argument. Rarely fixed by editing; usually needs the thesis re-planned around the claim.
Expected output: one sentence naming which of the four you have, agreed with your supervisor.
Step 3: Turn the report into a numbered specification
The same discipline that governs corrections governs this, at larger scale. Extract every distinct requirement from the examiners’ prose into a numbered list, splitting compound sentences into separate items, and classify each as new work, reanalysis, rewriting, or presentational.
Then do the thing that distinguishes a successful resubmission: rank by dependency, not by page order. If item 6 requires an analysis that item 11 then has to be discussed against, item 6 comes first, and if item 6 needs data you do not yet have, everything downstream of it is blocked and must be scheduled around it. A plan that runs through the report top to bottom will discover in the second-to-last month that the discussion cannot be written because the analysis it depends on is still outstanding.
Expected output: a dependency-ordered work plan with a date against each item and the blocked items visibly marked.
Step 4: Use the supervision you are entitled to
This is the most under-used right in the whole process. UCL’s regulations state that a student referred for resubmission “will have access to UCL facilities and will be entitled to have at least one draft of their thesis read and commented on by their Principal Supervisor and/or Subsidiary Supervisor before re-submission”, and add that “revisions may require more supervision or further access to UCL laboratories or other facilities”.
Read that twice. A full supervisory read of the revised thesis before it goes back is an entitlement at UCL, not a favour, and the regulation anticipates that you may need more supervision than usual rather than less. Check whether your own regulations say the same, because if they do, the read is yours to ask for by name. Candidates in this position frequently withdraw from contact out of embarrassment, which is precisely the wrong response. If your relationship with the team is part of what went wrong, our guide to managing a supervisory team covers how to reset it.
Two practical asks, made early. Agree a date by which the full draft will be with your supervisor, working backwards from the deadline with at least six weeks of margin. And ask them to read it against the examiners’ report rather than as a general reader — a read that checks each numbered item is worth far more than a read that comments on prose.
Expected output: a diarised date for the supervisory read, agreed in writing, at least six weeks before your deadline.
Step 5: Rebuild around the claim, not around the criticisms
A thesis assembled by patching each criticism in place reads as a patched thesis, and a second viva will find the seams. The examiners are not marking your compliance; they are re-examining whether the thesis now meets the doctoral criteria as a whole.
- Restate the contribution in one sentence, revised in the light of what the examiners said. Everything else is judged against this sentence.
- Re-plan the chapter sequence so that each chapter does one job towards that claim. A structural referral usually turns out to be a sequencing problem, and moving a chapter is cheaper than rewriting three.
- Do the new work first, because it is the only part with an irreducible duration.
- Rewrite the introduction and conclusion last, together, once the middle is settled. They are the two chapters that must agree with the new claim, and writing them early guarantees rewriting them twice.
Expected output: a thesis that would read as coherent to someone who had never seen the examiners’ report.
Step 6: Produce the accompanying document
Even where regulations do not demand one, submit a statement of changes with the resubmitted thesis. Its job is to let two examiners who read your thesis a year ago find, quickly, what is now different.
Statement of revisions accompanying the resubmitted thesis
The thesis has been substantially revised in response to the examiners’ report of [date]. The central claim has been narrowed and is now stated at p. 4 and defended in Chapter 7. Three changes are structural and are summarised here; the remaining items are listed in the table that follows, in page order.
1. Additional empirical work (report items 2, 5 and 9). A second round of data collection was conducted between [dates], adding 24 cases and extending coverage to the sector the examiners identified as absent. The new material is reported in a new Chapter 5 (pp. 96–128) and integrated into the discussion at pp. 171–180.
2. Reanalysis (report item 4). The analysis has been re-run using the approach the examiners recommended. The revised results are at pp. 132–140. The direction of the original finding is unchanged; its magnitude is smaller, and the claim in the conclusion has been qualified accordingly (p. 199).
3. Restructuring (report items 1, 12). Former Chapters 2 and 3 have been merged and reduced by approximately 9,000 words, and the theoretical framework now appears before the literature it organises rather than after it.
Three rules make it work. Address every numbered item, including the small ones. Give new page references, because those are the numbers your examiners need. And where a requirement has been met differently from the way they suggested, say so and give the reason in two sentences — a defensible alternative is acceptable; a silent substitution is not.
Expected output: a statement of revisions plus a page-ordered table of changes, ready to go with the thesis.
Step 7: Re-enter for the examination — the step that gets missed
A resubmission is a new examination, and it has to be entered. UCL’s regulations are explicit: “A student who is required to re-submit must re-enter for the examination by completing the Examination Entry Form available on Portico before they resubmit their thesis.”
Do this early rather than in the final week, because entry triggers the machinery that confirms examiners and arranges the second viva. Check at the same time whether your institution charges a resubmission fee and who is liable for it; UCL’s regulations set out a submission extension fee for late submission but do not state a resubmission fee in this chapter, so treat it as a question for your graduate office rather than an assumption either way.
Expected output: the entry form submitted, and a written answer from your graduate office on fees and on who your examiners will be.
Preparing for the second viva
Where a second examination happens it is normally conducted by the same examiners, and that changes how you prepare. They know the thesis, they know what they asked for, and the examination will concentrate on whether you have done it and whether you understand why it mattered.
Prepare three things beyond the standard rehearsal covered in our guide to viva preparation. Be able to walk through the statement of revisions from memory. Be able to explain any requirement you met differently, in one sentence, without defensiveness. And be ready for the question specific to this examination: what you now think was wrong with the original version — a candidate who can answer that has demonstrated exactly the critical distance the referral was testing for. What the second examination can produce, how the outcome architecture is arranged, and how often each recommendation is even available across UK institutions, is set out in our analysis of viva outcomes across 127 institutions.
The practical problem: a year of writing with no cohort
Candidates in a referral period are usually no longer funded, frequently working, and no longer part of a research group whose rhythms carry them. The registration and continuation position that produces this is set out in our guide to how long a UK PhD actually takes, and it is worth reading before you plan, because the resubmission clock and your registration status are governed separately.
What makes the writing survivable is a structure that persists between sessions, so that returning after three weeks away does not begin with reconstructing where you were. Tesify holds the chapter plan and the bibliography across the whole rebuild, keeps the revised argument consistent from the introduction to the conclusion, and reformats references as the thesis moves around them. Every word stays 100% written by you — the only version a second viva can be passed on. It is free to start.
Frequently asked questions
Is a referral for resubmission a fail?
No. It is a distinct outcome sitting above the award of a lower degree and above no award at all. UCL’s regulations list all of these separately, and referral is the outcome that says the thesis can meet the criteria within a defined period.
How long do I get to resubmit a PhD thesis?
Usually twelve months. In the UKCGE’s survey of 124 UK institutions offering refer-and-resubmit, 78% allowed up to 12 months, 15% up to 18 and 3% up to 24. UCL sits in the middle band with 18 months for a PhD, EngD, DPA or DBA, and 12 months for an MPhil or MD(Res). Read your own regulations for the figure that binds you, and note that the award you registered for can change the answer within one institution.
Do I have to do a second viva after resubmitting?
It depends on where you are. The UKCGE found a second viva mandatory at 10% of institutions and at the examiners’ discretion at a further 72%, so for most candidates it is possible rather than certain. At UCL it is required outright: the regulation states that “a resubmission requires a second viva examination”. Either way, prepare as though it will happen.
Can I be referred twice?
Not at UCL, whose regulations permit referral for resubmission “on one occasion only”. Check yours, but assume you have one attempt and plan accordingly.
Will I have the same examiners?
Normally yes, which is an advantage: they know the work and they set the requirements. Ask your graduate office to confirm at the point you re-enter for the examination.
Am I still entitled to supervision during a resubmission?
At UCL, explicitly. A referred student is “entitled to have at least one draft of their thesis read and commented on by their Principal Supervisor and/or Subsidiary Supervisor before re-submission”, with access to facilities, and the regulations anticipate that “revisions may require more supervision”. Entitlements are institutional, so check whether yours is written down — if it is, it is an ask rather than a favour.
Do I need to re-enter for the examination?
Yes at UCL, before resubmitting, via the Examination Entry Form. Do it early — the entry is what starts the process of confirming examiners and arranging the second viva.
Is there a fee to resubmit?
Institutional, and not stated in the UCL research degree regulations chapter that governs resubmission. Ask your graduate office in writing rather than assuming, and ask at the same time about your registration status during the period.
Can I be awarded an MPhil instead?
At UCL the examiners may, after the examination or the resubmission for a PhD, determine that the standard for the intended award has not been reached and award the MPhil, with additional minor corrections possible at that point. The option exists everywhere — all 127 institutions in the UKCGE survey retained the power to award a lower degree — but it is an outcome of the examination, not an automatic consolation.
What is the single most common mistake in a resubmission?
Patching the criticisms one by one without re-establishing the argument as a whole, and leaving the new empirical work until the second half of the period. The first produces a thesis with visible seams; the second produces a deadline that cannot be met — and on a twelve-month clock, which is what most candidates actually have, it cannot be recovered from.