BPS or PSI conversion course: the two societies already recognise each other, so the real differences are entry, price and what each one publishes

If you are choosing between a UK conversion course accredited by the British Psychological Society and an Irish one accredited by the Psychological Society of Ireland, the question people usually ask — “which one is recognised in more places?” — has already been answered by the two societies. They recognise each other, in both directions, and each says so on its own site.

PSI, on its page for applicants who qualified outside Ireland:

“Following a Memorandum of Cooperation with the British Psychological Society (BPS), those of you who have completed a BPS accredited undergraduate or conversion degree and achieved a 2:2 honours or above are eligible for PSI Graduate Membership. Please note you do not need to submit a GMA form.”

BPS, on its page for students:

“Following a Memorandum of Cooperation between the Society and the Psychological Society of Ireland (PSI), those eligible for Graduate Membership of the PSI after having gained an academic award accredited by the PSI are also eligible for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership (GBC) of the British Psychological Society.”

Both directions, both stated by the awarding body itself, both read on 3 September 2026. That closes the recognition question and opens the ones that actually decide the choice.

What each society requires to let you in

The entry rule is the sharpest structural difference, and it runs the opposite way to what most people expect.

BPS. The Society sets one entry condition for a 180-credit conversion course: “Applicants to conversion programmes must normally have a degree at any level which has not been accredited by the Society (whether in psychology or another subject). For conversion programmes comprising 180 credits, this is the only entry requirement set by the Society.” For 120-credit awards, you need “the equivalent of at least 60 credits of psychology at the undergraduate level”.

PSI. The Society’s published condition sits at the exit rather than the entrance: “Completion of a PSI accredited undergraduate degree with a Second Class Honours or above or completion of a PSI accredited Psychology Conversion Course with an overall pass mark of 50 per cent confers eligibility for graduate membership with the Psychological Society of Ireland.” Entry conditions are then set by the course. Dublin City University’s PSI-accredited MSc in Psychology (Conversion), for example, requires “a minimum combined total of 60 ECTS in Psychology modules (or modules with a substantial element of Psychology… ) and/or Research Methods” on top of a cognate honours degree.

So an applicant with no psychology whatsoever in their first degree may find the 180-credit UK route open on the accreditor’s own rules, while an Irish course they were looking at asks for 60 ECTS of prior psychology as a provider condition. That is a course-level fact, not a country-level one — check the specific programme.

One small inconsistency worth knowing about: PSI’s accreditation page states the conversion threshold as “an overall pass mark of 50 per cent”, while its course-list page states “Completion of a PSI accredited undergraduate or conversion course, with 2:2 honours or above is required for graduate membership of the PSI”, and its overseas page uses “2:2 honours or above”. Those are PSI’s own three formulations, on three of its own pages. If your result is near the line, get the applicable threshold from PSI in writing.

Published price, for someone paying the non-domestic rate

Figures below are as published by each provider on 3 September 2026 for 2026/27 entry, full-time.

Course	Accreditor	Length published	Domestic fee	Non-domestic fee
DCU, MSc in Psychology (Conversion)	PSI	1 year	EU status €9,100	Non-EU €16,800
Anglia Ruskin, MSc Psychology (Conversion)	BPS	1 year full-time	UK £10,300	International £19,500
Glasgow, Psychological Studies (conversion) MSc	BPS	full-time	Home & RUK £11,943	International & EU £33,210

DCU states the fee is “per annum and subject to an annual increase”. Glasgow additionally requires a £2,000 deposit from International and EU applicants at offer stage. None of these figures is a total cost of study.

The spread inside the UK is wider than the spread between the two countries. Anyone treating “UK” and “Ireland” as two price points is comparing the wrong things: the real variance is provider by provider.

What each society publishes, and how easy it is to check

This is where the two diverge most, and it matters more than it sounds.

PSI publishes an open table. Its accredited undergraduate and conversion courses appear as plain HTML: institution, course, and an accreditation status column reading, verbatim, things like “Accredited from 2023 to 2028”, “Accredited until Mar-2030”, “Accredited until Sept-29”. Anyone can read it, cite it, and see the end date. On the day we read it, some rows carried end dates that had already passed — which may reflect a renewal in progress rather than a lapse, but which means the table alone cannot answer a 2026/27 applicant’s question.

Its currently listed conversion-titled awards are DCU’s MSc in Psychology (Conversion), NUI Maynooth’s MSc Psychology (Conversion), University of Galway’s HDip Psychology (Conversion) and University of Limerick’s MA in Psychology (Conversion Course), alongside Higher Diplomas in Psychology at Trinity College Dublin, University College Cork, University College Dublin, Dublin Business School and University of Galway. Each carries its own end date in the table.

BPS publishes a search tool. Its register has no citable per-course URL you can hand to someone; you run a search and open a record. The record does carry the fields that matter — Accreditation Status, Date Accredited, and, on lapsed programmes, Discontinued Accreditation Date — plus a sentence of the form “This programme is accredited for all intakes from 2015/2016 and confers eligibility for the Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership.” On some lapsed records that sentence still reads in the present tense while the status field says previously accredited, so read the fields rather than the prose.

Neither system is better in principle. PSI’s is easier to check and easier to cite. The BPS’s carries more structured detail once you are inside it.

What neither one is

Graduate Basis for Chartered Membership and PSI Graduate Membership are society memberships, not licences.

The BPS is explicit about what GBC is for: “GBC is an important step towards becoming a Chartered Member of the Society (CPsychol)… Without eligibility for the GBC, you won’t be able to complete society-accredited postgraduate and professional studies.” DCU frames the PSI equivalent the same way: “This course has been designed to enable graduates to seek membership of the Psychological Society of Ireland upon completion. Such membership is a prerequisite for further study in psychology, including clinical and applied areas.”

Both are gateway qualifications to accredited postgraduate training. Neither is registration with a statutory regulator, and neither society claims it is.

The doctorate stage, where the two systems part company for non-EEA applicants

PSI publishes a warning on its accredited-courses page that has no direct BPS equivalent, and anyone choosing Ireland as a stepping stone should read it before they choose:

“Prospective students should be aware that some doctorate programmes, such as Doctorate degrees in Clinical, Educational, and Counselling Psychology, may not be open to non‑European Economic Area (EEA) applicants.”

“Where these programmes are funded by the Health Service Executive (HSE), trainees are employed as well as enrolled as students. As a result, a student visa alone is not sufficient; eligibility would require appropriate permission to work in Ireland which may limit access for non‑EEA applicants.”

PSI directs readers to irishimmigration.ie for the immigration position, and so do we. We do not give immigration advice and we publish no immigration conclusions. What we will say is the educational point: a one-year conversion course that ends in graduate membership does not, on its own, guarantee access to the professional doctorate that membership is a prerequisite for — and the constraint PSI names is a constraint on the training post, not on the qualification.

Applying to the other society afterwards

If you take the PSI route and later want BPS recognition, or vice versa, the memorandum means you do not go through individual assessment. PSI states that BPS-accredited graduates “do not need to submit a GMA form”. The BPS states the reciprocal position.

If your psychology degree is from anywhere else, both societies assess individually. The BPS: “it doesn’t currently accredit international degrees… All overseas applications are assessed on the individual merit of the qualifications received.” PSI: “Acceptance of a Psychology Degree obtained outside Ireland is based on equivalence to a PSI Accredited Honours Psychology Degree”, judged against its 2019 accreditation guidelines, requiring breadth across “the biological bases of behaviour, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, social psychology, personality and individual differences (including psychometrics) and research methodology” plus “research competence in practical work and in the completion of a supervised research project”. PSI states average processing times of “10-16 weeks”.

What we could not verify

PSI’s application fee for graduate membership. Its overseas page instructs applicants to “Pay the fee and submit application” without stating the amount on that page. We publish no figure.

Non-EU fees for the other Irish conversion courses. We read DCU’s. Maynooth’s and Galway’s course pages did not return to us on the day, so we have not published their figures rather than repeating them from third parties.

Whether any PSI table row with a past end date has since been renewed. The table is the source; the answer has to come from PSI.

Anything about visas or immigration routes. Out of scope for this site. PSI’s own text and irishimmigration.ie are the sources.

What to do

1. Stop optimising for recognition between the two. The memorandum answers it, in both directions, in each society’s own words.
2. Optimise for entry and price instead. The BPS’s 180-credit rule is the widest published door for an applicant with no prior psychology; the fee spread within the UK alone runs from around £10,000 to over £33,000 for one year.
3. Read the accreditation end date for your intake, in both systems. PSI prints it in a table; the BPS puts it in a record you have to open. Neither is optional.
4. If Ireland is a stepping stone to a professional doctorate, read PSI’s own paragraph on non-EEA access first, and take the immigration question to irishimmigration.ie, not to a course adviser.
5. Get the pass threshold in writing if your result may land near 2:2 or 50 per cent. PSI’s own pages state it three ways.

We are not the BPS or PSI, we do not accredit courses and we do not decide membership. Both societies do, against their own published standards. What this page does is put their two sets of published words side by side so that the comparison is made on facts each of them has already stated.