How to Use Freedom of Information Requests for Your Dissertation, Step by Step (2026)

Some of the most original dissertation datasets in the UK were never published anywhere — they were requested. The Freedom of Information Act 2000 gives you the right to recorded information held by public authorities, and researchers use it to obtain figures that no portal offers: institution-level breakdowns, internal policy documents, counts nobody thought to publish. Published analyses of PhD viva outcomes, for example, rest on data gathered from universities by FOI request — the method behind figures like those in our PhD viva outcome statistics roundup. This guide walks through making a request that actually produces usable data, on a dissertation timeline.

Step 1: Check the information is FOI-shaped

FOI covers recorded information held by public authorities — councils, government departments, NHS bodies, state schools, universities, police forces (GOV.UK). Three boundary checks before you draft anything:

• It must be recorded. Authorities disclose documents and data they hold; they do not create new analysis or answer opinion questions for you.
• It must not already be published. Search the authority’s publications and data portals first — a request for published information gets you a link and costs you a month.
• It must be the right regime. Environmental information is handled under the Environmental Information Regulations rather than FOIA, and your own personal data comes under a subject access request instead — the differences are mapped in our comparison of FOI, EIR and subject access requests. Scotland has its own Act (FOISA) for Scottish public authorities.

Step 2: Design the request like an instrument

A dissertation-grade FOI request is a data-collection instrument, and the same design discipline applies. The practices that separate usable responses from unusable ones:

• Ask for defined fields over defined periods. “The number of X, broken down by year, for the academic years 2021–22 to 2025–26” beats “information about X”. Ambiguity gets resolved by the authority, not by you.
• Mirror the authority’s own vocabulary. If the sector reports “programme withdrawals”, asking about “dropouts” invites a nil return. Read one annual report first.
• Ask for a re-usable format. Request the data as a spreadsheet (CSV or similar). You can express a format preference when you apply.
• Keep each request small. Authorities can refuse requests where the cost of compliance exceeds the statutory limit (section 12 of the Act) — a single question with a clean breakdown is far more likely to come in under it than a five-part fishing expedition. If you need five things, weigh five separate, well-spaced requests.
• Plan the sample like a survey. If your design needs the same figures from 30 universities, send 30 identical requests and track them in a spreadsheet — response rate, date due, outcome. Non-response is a finding to report, not a gap to hide.

Step 3: Send it — and start the clock

Requests are made in writing to the authority (most publish an FOI contact address; public request platforms also exist that publish requests and responses openly). The authority must respond promptly and no later than 20 working days after receiving the request — the deadline set by section 10 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000. Twenty working days is four calendar weeks on a good run; a batch of requests across authorities will straggle over two months once clarification exchanges are counted. Put the dates in your project plan the day you send.

Step 4: Handle the response honestly

Four outcomes are possible, and your dissertation should be ready for each:

• Granted in full — record the authority, the date, and the exact wording of your question alongside the data. The question wording is part of the data’s meaning.
• Granted in part / withheld — refusals must cite the ground: cost over the limit, or an exemption. A refusal is itself citable evidence about what authorities do and do not disclose.
• “Information not held” — often the most interesting result: it tells you the authority does not record what you assumed it records.
• Silence past the deadline — chase in writing, then use the authority’s internal review process; the Information Commissioner’s Office is the escalation route beyond that (GOV.UK).

Step 5: Write it up as method, not as anecdote

FOI-derived data belongs in your methodology chapter with the same rigour as a survey: how many authorities you asked, the exact request text (put it in an appendix), response and completeness rates, and how you handled inconsistent formats. Inconsistency is endemic — thirty authorities will interpret one question twenty ways — so define your harmonisation rules and report them. Ethically, FOI data is public-authority record data, not human-participant data, so it typically needs no participant consent; whether your institution still wants a light-touch review is covered in our guide to ethics approval for dissertations.

Worth studying as a model: research proposals that pair FOI requests with published records — one worked example in our research proposal template guide maps diagnostic AI deployment across NHS trusts using exactly that combination.

A model request, annotated

Here is the shape of a request that comes back usable:

“Dear [Authority], under the Freedom of Information Act 2000, please provide: the number of postgraduate research students who withdrew from their programme, broken down by academic year, for each of the academic years 2021–22 to 2025–26 inclusive, and by faculty if recorded. Please supply the data as a spreadsheet (CSV or Excel). If any part of this request would exceed the cost limit, please provide the parts that can be answered within it and advise which part is the constraint.”

Every clause is doing a job: the statute named (routes it to the right team), one metric (no ambiguity), an explicit breakdown and period (no interpretation), “if recorded” (avoids a nil return where the field is absent), format preference (re-usable data), and a severance clause (rescues the request from an all-or-nothing cost refusal). Adapt the skeleton, keep the discipline.

The mistakes that waste a month

• Asking questions instead of requesting records. “Why did withdrawals rise?” is not FOI-shaped; “the number of withdrawals per year” is.
• Requesting personal data. Information identifying individuals will be refused; ask for aggregated counts and expect small numbers to be suppressed.
• One giant multi-part request. Cost-limit refusals reject the whole thing; smaller requests survive severally.
• Missing the pre-check. If the figures are already published, the response is a link and the month is gone — search first.
• No response log. Thirty requests without a tracking sheet becomes an unanalysable pile; the log is your methods section.

The realistic timeline

The corollary: FOI is a first-term data strategy, not a final-month one. If your submission date cannot absorb a slow authority, build the analysis around the responses you can guarantee and treat late arrivals as robustness material.

Frequently asked questions

Can a student make an FOI request?

Yes — the right belongs to anyone, and you do not have to explain why you want the information or that it is for research. Requests are motive-blind.

How long does an FOI request take?

Authorities must respond promptly and within 20 working days (FOIA 2000, s.10). Some categories carry permitted extensions, and clarification exchanges add time — plan for four to eight weeks per batch in practice.

Does it cost anything?

Requests are free to make. The authority can refuse if compliance would exceed the statutory cost limit (s.12), which is why tightly scoped requests succeed where broad ones fail.

Can I FOI a university?

UK universities are public authorities for FOI purposes — institution-level requests to universities are exactly how several published analyses of doctoral outcomes were assembled.

What if the authority refuses?

The refusal must cite its ground. Ask for an internal review first; if you remain unsatisfied, complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office. Both steps are free and documented on GOV.UK.

Can I publish FOI responses in my dissertation?

Yes — disclosed information was released to the world, not just to you. Cite the authority, the request date and the response date, and keep the correspondence as your evidence trail.

Turn requests into chapters

An FOI-based dissertation lives or dies on logistics: request text, response log, harmonisation rules, evidence trail. Tesify keeps that machinery organised while you write the chapters around it — 100% written by you.

Build your dissertation with Tesify