📘 Imperial College London PhD Thesis LaTeX Template¶

This repository provides a LaTeX template designed for preparing and formatting a PhD Thesis at Imperial College London.
The template ensures full compliance with Imperial College's official thesis formatting guidelines, while offering a clear, modern, and modular structure that supports ease of use and long-term maintainability.

👥 Authors & Acknowledgements¶

This exemplar was developed at Imperial College London by:

• João Graça Gomes - PhD Candidate, Dyson School of Design Engineering
• Dr. Chris Cooling – Senior Teaching Fellow, Early Career Researcher Institute
• Diego Alonso Alvarez – Head of Research Software Engineering, ICT, Central Faculty

🎓 Learning Outcomes¶

The main objective of this project is to develop a standardised, user-friendly LaTeX template that:

1. Conforms strictly to Imperial College London's thesis presentation regulations and formatting requirements.
2. Facilitates consistency in typography, structure, and referencing across departments and research groups.
3. Simplifies the writing process for postgraduate researchers by providing pre-defined environments for chapters, sections, figures, tables, and appendices.
4. Integrates best practices in academic writing, including compatibility with BibLaTeX for references and packages for mathematical typesetting, graphics, and indexing.
5. Ensures long-term maintainability, with modular configuration files (e.g., preamble.tex) for easy customisation.

🎯 Target Audience¶

This LaTeX template is designed primarily for postgraduate researchers preparing their Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) theses at Imperial College London, but it can also benefit a broader academic audience.

The following groups will find this exemplar particularly useful:¶

1. PhD Candidates at Imperial College London¶

• Students seeking a compliant, ready-to-use LaTeX framework that meets official thesis formatting regulations.
• Researchers aiming to produce a professional and consistent document for both printed and electronic submission.

2. Supervisors and Research Advisors¶

• Academics who wish to provide their students with a standardised, institutionally aligned thesis format.
• Supervisors reviewing draft theses who value a consistent structure for efficient feedback.

3. Departmental Administrators and Graduate Schools¶

• Departments interested in maintaining uniformity in the presentation of theses across research groups.
• Administrative teams developing departmental LaTeX templates derived from this core structure.

4. Postgraduate Researchers from Other Institutions¶

• Scholars from other universities looking for a high-quality exemplar of a compliant UK-style PhD thesis format.
• Researchers who wish to adapt Imperial's clear, modular structure for their own institutional guidelines.

✅ Prerequisites¶

📚 Academic¶

• Familiarity with LaTeX and basic document compilation workflows.
• Understanding of academic writing conventions and thesis structure (chapters, abstracts, references, appendices).
• Optional: Experience with BibLaTeX, Biber, and reference management tools (e.g., Zotero, Mendeley).

💻 System¶

You can work either locally or directly in Overleaf — choose the workflow that suits you best.

Option A — Overleaf (no local installation required):

• Use Overleaf to compile and manage your thesis online.
• Note: Overleaf project size and quota limits depend on your plan.

Option B — Local setup:

• Install a LaTeX distribution: TeX Live, MiKTeX, or MacTeX.
• Recommended compiler: XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX (for Unicode and modern font support).
• Ensure Biber is installed if you use BibLaTeX.
• Compatible with TeXstudio, VS Code (LaTeX Workshop), or any LaTeX IDE.
• Requirements: Minimum 5 GB free disk space for LaTeX and auxiliary files.

🚀 Getting Started¶

Follow these steps to begin using the Imperial College London PhD Thesis Template:

Option A — Overleaf:

• Import the project via "New Project → Import from GitHub" or "New Project → Upload Project" (ZIP).
• In Project Settings, set Compiler to XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX.
• If using BibLaTeX, set Bibliography tool to Biber.
• Click Recompile and start editing files (e.g., preamble.tex, chapters/).

Option B — Local setup (after installing a LaTeX distribution):

• Clone the repository:

   ```bash
   git clone https://github.com/ImperialCollegeLondon/ReCoDE-LaTeX-PhD-Template
   ```
  

  • The LaTeX source files are found in the phd-thesis directory. Open the directory in your IDE and compile (two examples, according whether you are using XeLaTeX or LuaLaTeX):

    latexmk -pdf -xelatex main.tex
    

    latexmk -pdf -lualatex main.tex
    

    - Ensure Biber runs for references (BibLaTeX workflow).

• Note: If you do not have access to the repository, contact the Early Career Researcher Institute.

Licence 📄¶

This project is licensed under the BSD-3-Clause license.