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Thesis Acknowledgements Examples
By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Reviewers: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | May 2024
T he acknowledgements section of your thesis or dissertation is an opportunity to say thanks to all the people who helped you along your research journey. In this post, we’ll share five thesis acknowledgement examples to provide you with some inspiration.
Overview: Acknowledgements Examples
- The acknowledgements 101
- Example: Formal and professional
- Example: Warm and personal
- Example: Challenge-centric
- Example: Institution-centric
- Example: Reflective and philosophical
- FREE Acknowledgements template
Acknowledgements 101: The Basics
The acknowledgements section in your thesis or dissertation is where you express gratitude to those who helped bring your project to fruition. This section is typically brief (a page or less) and less formal, but it’s crucial to thank the right individuals in the right order .
As a rule of thumb, you’ll usually begin with academic support : your supervisors, advisors, and faculty members. Next, you’ll acknowledge any funding bodies or sponsors that supported your research. You’ll then follow this with your intellectual contributors , such as colleagues and peers. Lastly, you’ll typically thank your personal support network , including family, friends, and even pets who offered emotional support during your studies.
As you can probably see, this order moves from the most formal acknowledgements to the least . Typically, your supervisor is mentioned first, due to their significant role in guiding and potentially evaluating your work. However, while this structure is recommended, it’s essential to adapt it based on any specific guidelines from your university. So, be sure to always check (and adhere to) any requirements or norms specific to your university.
With that groundwork laid, let’s look at a few dissertation and thesis acknowledgement examples . If you’d like more, check out our collection of dissertation examples here .
Need a helping hand?
Example #1: Formal and Professional
This acknowledgement formally expresses gratitude to academic mentors and peers, emphasising professional support and academic guidance.
I extend my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Jane Smith, for her unwavering support and insightful critiques throughout my research journey. Her deep commitment to academic excellence and meticulous attention to detail have significantly shaped this dissertation. I am equally thankful to the members of my thesis committee, Dr. John Doe and Dr. Emily White, for their constructive feedback and essential suggestions that enhanced the quality of my work.
My appreciation also goes to the faculty and staff in the Department of Biology at University College London, whose resources and assistance have been invaluable. I would also like to acknowledge my peers for their camaraderie and the stimulating discussions that inspired me throughout my academic journey. Their collective wisdom and encouragement have been a cornerstone of my research experience.
Finally, my sincere thanks to the technical staff whose expertise in managing laboratory equipment was crucial for my experiments. Their patience and readiness to assist at all times have left a profound impact on the completion of my project.
Example #2: Warm and Personal
This acknowledgement warmly credits the emotional and personal support received from family, friends and an approachable mentor during the research process.
This thesis is a reflection of the unwavering support and boundless love I received from my family and friends during this challenging academic pursuit. I owe an immense debt of gratitude to my parents, who nurtured my curiosity and supported my educational endeavours from the very beginning.
To my partner, Alex, your endless patience and understanding, especially during the most demanding phases of this research, have been my anchor. A heartfelt thank you to my supervisor, Dr. Mark Brown, whose mentorship extended beyond the academic realm into personal guidance, providing comfort and motivation during tough times.
I am also thankful for my friends, who provided both distractions when needed and encouragement when it seemed impossible to continue. The discussions and unwavering support from my peers at the university have enriched my research experience, making this journey not only possible but also enjoyable. Their presence and insights have been pivotal in navigating the complexities of my research topic.
Example #3: Inclusive of Challenges
This acknowledgement recognises the wide range of support received during unexpected personal and academic challenges, highlighting resilience and communal support.
The path to completing this dissertation has been fraught with both professional challenges and personal adversities. I am profoundly grateful for the enduring support of my supervisor, Dr. Lisa Green, whose steadfast belief in my capabilities and academic potential encouraged me to persevere even during my lowest moments. Her guidance was a beacon of light in times of doubt.
I must also express my deepest appreciation for my family, who stepped in not only with emotional reassurance, but also with critical financial support, when unexpected personal challenges arose. Their unconditional love and sacrifice have been the foundation of my resilience and success.
I am thankful, too, for the support services at the university, including the counselling centre, whose staff provided me with the tools to manage stress and maintain focus on my academic goals. Each of these individuals and institutions played a crucial role in my journey, reminding me that the pursuit of knowledge is not a solo expedition but a communal effort.
Example #4: Institution-Centric
This acknowledgement succinctly appreciates the financial, academic, and operational support provided by the university and its staff.
This dissertation would not have been possible without the generous financial support from the University of Edinburgh Scholarship Programme, which enabled me to focus fully on my research without financial burden. I am profoundly grateful to my advisor, Professor Richard Miles, for his sage advice, rigorous academic guidance, and the confidence he instilled in me. His expertise in the field of microbiology greatly enriched my work.
I would also like to thank the staff at the university library, whose assistance was indispensable. Their patience and willingness to help locate rare and essential resources facilitated a thorough and comprehensive literature review. Additionally, the administrative and technical staff, who often go unmentioned, provided necessary support that greatly enhanced my research experience. Their dedication and hard work create an environment conducive to academic success.
Lastly, my peers’ encouragement and the intellectual environment at the university have been vital in completing my research.
Example #5: Reflective and philosophical
This acknowledgement reflects on the philosophical growth and personal insights gained through the support of mentors, peers, and family, framing the dissertation as a journey of intellectual discovery.
Completing this thesis has been not only an academic challenge but also a profound journey of personal and philosophical growth.
I am immensely grateful to my mentor, Professor Sarah Johnson, for encouraging me to explore complex ideas and to challenge conventional wisdom. Her guidance helped me navigate the philosophical underpinnings of my research and deepened my analytical skills. My fellow students in the Philosophy Department provided a supportive and intellectually stimulating community. Our discussions extended beyond the classroom, offering new insights and perspectives that were crucial to my thesis.
I am also deeply thankful for my family, whose intellectual curiosity and spirited philosophical debates at home sparked my interest in philosophy from a young age. Their continuous support and belief in my academic pursuits have been instrumental in my success.
This dissertation reflects not only my work but also the collective support of everyone who has touched my life academically and personally. The journey has taught me the value of questioning and the importance of diverse perspectives in enriching our understanding of complex philosophical issues.
FREE Acknowledgements Template
To help fast-track your writing process, we’ve created a free, fully editable template . This template covers all the necessary content for a generic thesis or dissertation acknowledgements section. If you’re interested, you can download a copy here .
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The Savvy Scientist
Experiences of a London PhD student and beyond
Thesis acknowledgements: Samples and how to write your own thesis or dissertation acknowledgements
Writing a thesis can be tricky. That’s why I’m starting a new series covering each section of the thesis, from thesis acknowledgements all the way to conclusions. I’ll be guiding you through the whole process, from what to include in your thesis to how to write it, along with examples from defended theses to help you to write your own.
We’ll begin by covering thesis acknowledgments. The acknowledgements section appears at the start of the thesis so it is often one of the first parts that everyone tries to tackle. As this will likely be your first taste of your thesis it can often feel quite intimidating to write!
Thankfully it’s also one of the easiest parts of the thesis to complete, which may help to give you a boost for the rest.
In this post we’ll cover everything to do with thesis acknowledgements: samples, what to include and how to write them. At the end I’ll also outline a 60 minute exercise which will get you preparing a first draft of your own! I’ve also got a similar post to craft your thesis title, which you can check out here .
I’m writing this post with a PhD thesis in mind but it could work just as well if you’re looking for help including acknowledgements in your Master’s or undergraduate thesis/ dissertation.
What is the purpose of the acknowledgements section in a thesis?
The acknowledgements section of your thesis is an opportunity to reflect on the people who have supported and shaped your PhD experience.
Don’t worry, although your examiners will be interested to read your acknowledgements section, you won’t really get judged on it in your PhD viva. This section is for you to share as little, or as much, as you want about everyone involved in your PhD journey.
The acknowledgements are a very personal section of your thesis and each PhD student will have different things they want to include. For example, many people wonder: How do I thank my family in a thesis? And the acknowledgements section is the answer!
Note – You can also use a thesis dedication to thank your family. This is a separate section to your thesis acknowledgements and is entirely optional. It’s usually just a single line, just like you might find at the front of some books. Most people don’t include a separate dedication section but you can if you want to go that extra step.
What to include in your thesis acknowledgements
There are usually no formal requirements dictating what to include in your acknowledgements. However, do double check for any potential rules at your specific institution.
In general the acknowledgements are the section of your thesis where you have some creative liberty and are not bound by rigid research protocols or guidelines.
Many students choose to use the acknowledgements section to thank people (or organisations) who:
- Introduced them to the topic
- Helped with their PhD application
- Funded the project
- Supervisors
- Technicians
- Partners, friends or family
- Or anyone else who made an impression along the way!
But remember, you can include whatever you want! For example in my own PhD acknowledgements, which you’ll read further down this post, I thanked the university for providing a green outdoor space for us.
Acknowledge whoever and whatever influenced your own PhD experience.
You may find it helpful to start by writing a list of everyone you wish to thank.
How do you write an acknowledgements section?
Since there are no guidelines to worry about, it is really up to you how you write your own thesis acknowledgements. You have a lot of freedom for what to include and how to write it.
However you may find the following suggested phases helpful as a starting point.
Who you want to thank…
- “First and foremost, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to…”
- “I must thank…”
- “A special thanks to…”
- “I would like to highlight two truly exceptional people from…”
- “I want to thank…”
- “In addition, I would like to mention”
- “I would also like to extend my thanks to…”
- “I want to give my deepest appreciation to…”
- “Finally, but the most importantly, I would like to thank…”
…then, why you want to thank them
It can be nice to also include why you’re thanking these people, using phrases such as:
- “…for the opportunity to be a part of this project”
- “…for always being there when I needed his support, reviewing my progress constantly, and guiding me through my PhD studies”
- “….for being a great bunch of people in and out of the lab”
- …”for all the guidance, support and outstanding feedback”
- “… who took their time to help teach me…”
- “…for her unlimited support and unconditional guidance during my PhD journey”
- “…were always there for discussions about anything that I was unsure on”
- “…whom has offered invaluable advice that will benefit me throughout my life”
- “…for supporting me since my undergraduate, and for the valuable discussions we had along the road”
- “…for making the past 4 years much more enjoyable and keeping me sane throughout the whole process”
Here is a whole example from an accepted PhD thesis:
Firstly, I want to thank [supervisor’s name(s)] for giving me the opportunity to work on this project, providing valuable guidance and feedback, and challenging me to grow as a scientist. Excerpt from Dr Wane’s thesis acknowledgements, available via this page or use this direct download link .
Some people will choose to use full names and titles for any professional acknowledgements and first names for any personal ones. Again, this is up to you.
To help illustrate the variety of thesis acknowledgement formats, we’ll shortly be coming on to some examples of acknowledgment sections from successfully defended theses.
Before then I want to cover some of the main questions relating to how to write your own thesis acknowledgements section:
How long should you spend writing your thesis acknowledgements?
My suggestion is to spend only an hour or two making a first draft. I suggest doing this well ahead of your final deadline so that you have time to come back to it. Even so, I’d certainly look to spend far less than one day’s work on it in total.
It is a “nice to have” and means a lot to a lot of people, but remember you’re really only writing this section for yourself. I probably spent about two hours writing mine in total, simply because it wasn’t a priority for me.
What order should you write your acknowledgements in?
A typical way to write your acknowledgements is to go from the most formal/academic relationships to the least.
It is normal to start with any funding bodies, then formal people like your PhD supervisors, then move through labmates, friends and family. But again, there are generally no rules!
How long should the acknowledgements section be?
You can include as much or as little as you want. My own PhD acknowledgements section was just under a page long and it consisted of 386 words or 1892 characters (without spaces).
Here is how it was formatted:
But let’s not just look at my thesis. Using Imperial’s publicly accessible database I went through 25 published PhD theses for you.
The average (mean) length of these 25 theses was 365 words and 1793 characters without spaces. Writing an acknowledgements section of length 350-450 words was the most common:
The shortest acknowledgements sections was 122 words(653 characters) long. The longest one consisted of 1022 words and 5082 characters. Hopefully this illustrates that you’re not really bound by any limits. Write as much or as little as you want for this section.
Sample thesis acknowledgements
My own phd thesis acknowledgement.
My own PhD thesis is available here *, the acknowledgements section is on page 5. Here is the complete version of my acknowledgements section:
I would like to acknowledge both EPSRC and the Class of 1964 Scholarship for their financial support. It has been an honour to be the inaugural recipient of the Class of 1964 Scholarship and I am indebted to the donors in providing me complete academic freedom in this research. An immense thank you to my PhD supervisors: Jonathan Jeffers, Ulrich Hansen and Julian Jones. Support and guidance throughout the project from you all has been invaluable. JJ in particular you’ve been a fantastic primary supervisor. Thank you to all the academics who helped me get to this stage. The late Dr Kajal Mallick and his Biomedical Materials course at the University of Warwick was a huge influence and without which I would have never followed this path. My “pre-doc” supervisors in Dr Helen Lee of University of Cambridge and in particular the remarkable Prof Judith Hall OBE of Cardiff University from whom I learned so much. Thanks to Alison Paul and Michael Lim for being so supportive when I was considering applying for PhDs. It has been an amazing experience working between two research groups across different departments, thanks to everyone from the Biomechanics and JRJ groups I’ve worked with and from whom I’ve learned so much. Thank you of course to the Hybrids team I’ve worked so closely on this project with: Fra, Gloria, Agathe, Maria, Silvia, it’s been great fun working with you all! Gloria in particular thanks for you all your help, support and friendship: your inclusivity is appreciated by many. Saman, I’ve been so pleased to have you working on DVC with me and being able to discuss ideas with you really has been invaluable. I am grateful to everyone I’ve collaborated with externally: Farah, Amin and Brett (Natural History Museum) plus Andy and Behzad (Royal Veterinary College), thank you all for your support and input. Thanks also to everyone I’ve met through the Environmental Society at Imperial in particular Chelcie: your friendship and support have added a lot to my life. Thanks to Imperial for providing space for the ESoc garden, taking a break and enjoy nature in this space has certainly improved my work. Thanks of course to my family for their support. Finally, thank you Jo for always being so supportive and helping me every step of the way. My PhD thesis, available here . Acknowledgements are on page 5.
*For me the thesis was a means to an end. I wanted my PhD and didn’t want to spend too long agonising over each page. Therefore, it is possible there are typos in there, if you read any of it: firstly well done, I haven’t looked at it much since submitting the final copy, secondly, please don’t tell me about any typos you find!
Other PhD thesis acknowledgement examples
Below are the other 24 published and openly accessible STEM PhD theses I found for this article.
For each person’s thesis, either follow the first link to be taken to the landing page or follow the second link to directly download their thesis: I gave you a choice in case you don’t want stuff to start downloading automatically from a random text link!
The list is formatted as follows:
- [Link to thesis page on repository], [which page the acknowledgements appear on], [direct link to download the thesis]
- Dr Shipman’s thesis , for the acknowledgements go to page 3. Direct download here .
- Longest acknowledgements section of the list at 1022 words.
- Dr Li’s thesis , page 11. Direct download here .
- Dr Podgurschi’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Medjeral-Thomas’ thesis page 3. Direct download here .
- Dr Sztuc’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Yap’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Sukkar’s thesis , page 9. Direct download here .
- Dr Lo’s thesis , page 11. Direct download here .
- Dr Sullivan’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Tawy’s thesis , page 3. Direct download here .
- Dr Wane’s thesis , page 2. Direct download here .
- Dr Addison’s thesis , page 4. Direct download here .
- Dr Wang’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Sebest’s thesis , page 3. Direct download here .
- Dr Hopkins’ thesis , page 7. Direct download here .
- Dr Bates’s thesis , page 4. Direct download here .
- Dr Somuyiwa’s thesis , page 6. Direct download here .
- Dr Reynolds’ thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- My labmate’s thesis, who wrote the acknowledgements in a different style to the rest by using bullet points.
- Shortest acknowledgements section of the list at 122 words.
- Dr Manca’s thesis , acknowledgements on page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Liu’s thesis , page 5. Direct download here .
- Dr Hotinli’s thesis , page 7. Direct download here .
My top tips for writing your own thesis acknowledgements
- Don’t spend too long on them. The acknowledgements section is really not worth spending too much time on. Even worse, since they appear at the start of your thesis, it is tempting to write your acknowledgements first. This can be fine, or, it can be an opportunity for lots of unnecessary procrastination. Which I why I instead suggest that you…
- Write your acknowledgements at the end of your first draft of the thesis. There is no need to write your thesis in the order it is presented. If you write your acknowledgements at the end you’ll be less likely to spend precious time on a section which really doesn’t warrant too much brain power.
- Don’t stress about it. The acknowledgements are merely for yourself and for anyone close to you that you want to thank. There are far more important sections for you to be particular about!
- Remember: You can make changes after you submit the copy for your viva. As with everything in your thesis, you can make changes after you submit the thesis for your viva. The real “final” copy is when you submit your thesis to the university for archiving. Which is even more reason to not spend too much time writing it the first time around.
Draft your own thesis or dissertation acknowledgements in 60 minutes
Hopefully you now feel inspired to start writing your own thesis acknowledgments!
For the exercise below I’d suggest setting a stop-watch on your phone and move on to the next section when the alarm goes, even if you’ve not fully finished. The aim is to have a rough draft at the end which you can polish off at a later point in time.
- Read a few of the example thesis acknowledgements above to get a feel for the structure ( 15 mins )
- List everyone (or everything!) you wish to thank – including any personal and professional acknowledgements in addition to funding bodies if relevant ( 10 mins )
- Decide on a rough order in which to thank them ( 5 mins )
- Craft some sentences using the phrases mentioned above ( 30 mins )
Congratulations you’re now well on your way to having one section of your PhD thesis completed!
I hope this post has been useful for constructing your own thesis or dissertation acknowledgements. It is the first in a series of posts aiming to help your thesis writing by delving into each section in depth. Be sure to let me know if you have any questions or suggestions for other content which you would find useful.
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