Reading a university's partnership paperwork: what the approval file contains, and why a memorandum of understanding is not one

Search for how a transnational programme is governed and you land on pages written by universities for their own quality managers. They rank because there is nothing else. They are also, once you know what you are reading, the most useful documents available to you — because they list the exact records that exist for your programme and name the one document that actually approves it.

That document is a signed agreement, normally called a memorandum of agreement or a partnership agreement. It is not a memorandum of understanding, and universities that publish both say so explicitly.

This page sets out what the approval file contains, in the wording of the quality bodies and of a university’s own published policy. It does not evaluate any partnership.

The one distinction that saves the most time

A UK university’s academic collaborations office publishes the difference in plain terms.

On agreements: “Academic collaborations involving students of the University are governed by a formal legal agreement (normally referred to as a Memorandum of Agreement or ‘MoA’) between the University and its partner.”

On memorandums of understanding: “MoUs are used to show intent of collaboration without yet committing to specific activities. It does not technically represent a binding agreement but often signals the intention of working towards one.”

The same page notes that a memorandum of agreement “will reflect the negotiations and agreed position between the partners and therefore its drafting necessarily takes place as this position becomes clear, rather than at the start of any negotiations”, and that the office “maintains a set of ‘template’ agreements” while most collaborations need a bespoke one.

If a recruitment conversation offers you a memorandum of understanding as evidence that a partnership exists, that is not the approval document, on the awarding university’s own published account of what the two documents are.

What the sector expects the approval file to contain

QAA’s advice on partnerships states the practices UK awarding bodies work to. Its guiding principles are not mandatory, which the document says itself — “The guiding principles given here are not mandatory for any provider” — but they describe what an approval file normally holds, and they are specific.

Governance sign-off exists and covers the whole life of the arrangement. Principle 2: “The awarding organisation will have in place appropriate governance to authorise and oversee the development and closure of partnership arrangements and to monitor their effective operation.”

Due diligence is completed and the agreement is signed before you enrol. Principle 3: “Due diligence enquiries are completed and legally binding written agreements are signed prior to the commencement of student registration — due diligence enquiries are refreshed periodically and before agreements are renewed.” The explanation adds that such agreements “set out the rights and obligations of all parties, should be finalised and signed before students register on the associated provision”, and that “where relevant, the written agreements will include appropriate student protection plan (or equivalent) clauses.”

The agreement says which law governs it. In its practical advice on due diligence, QAA states that the agreement “should include a comprehensive statement of the rights and responsibilities of the different parties” and that where the arrangement “is transnational, the agreement should include in which legal jurisdiction will apply.”

Quality procedures are described, including where they differ. Principle 4 requires that partnership provision be subject to procedures “at least as rigorous, secure and open to scrutiny as those used for the provision delivered by the awarding organisation”, and the explanation states that “the partnership agreement will include information on the quality procedures for the provision, if, and how, they differ from those used for the provision delivered by the awarding organisation. They do not need to be the same procedures but they must be as rigorous, secure and open to scrutiny.”

Awarding is not delegated. Principle 5: awarding organisations “retain the authority and responsibility for awarding certificates and records of study in relation to student achievement”, and the awarding organisation “will maintain records of study and achievement for students who achieve a qualification and will issue certificates to each individual student.”

A register of partnerships is kept. Principle 6: “All awarding organisations maintain accurate, up-to-date records of all partnership arrangements that are subject to a formal agreement.”

Australia’s regulator writes the accountability point into binding standards rather than guidance. Section 5.4.2 of the Higher Education Standards Framework provides that when a course “is delivered through arrangements with another party(ies), whether in Australia or overseas, the registered higher education provider remains accountable for the course of study and verifies continuing compliance.”

What is public, and where

You will rarely see the signed agreement. You can usually see everything around it.

The awarding university’s own collaboration pages. The university quoted above publishes, under one heading, an explanation of what academic collaborations are, guidance on each model it uses — “Articulation, Joint Degrees (Taught), Dual/Double/Multiple Degrees (Taught), Joint Degree (Research), Dual/Double/Multiple Degrees (Research), Validation and Franchising, Teaching Services, Joint Supervision” — a transnational education page, a page listing UK and overseas collaborations, and a separate page listing validation partners. Whether your programme’s partner appears on those lists is a fact you can check in an afternoon.

The national register in the awarding country. England’s regulatory framework describes two entries that matter here. On validation: “The Register will identify where a provider has entered into validation agreements, which is where the courses of a provider without degree awarding powers are awarded by another provider with degree awarding powers.” On subcontracting: “The Register will include information relating to a provider’s subcontractual arrangements. A lead provider may subcontract teaching of some or all of a course to a delivery provider or to another organisation. The lead provider remains responsible for the students studying at the delivery provider.”

The provider’s public information repository, where the host country requires one. Australia’s Threshold Standards specify what must be in it, and two items are directly useful: “the locations at which higher education is offered, including overseas if applicable”, and “arrangements with other parties to deliver courses of study or to conduct research training”. The standards then specify what the course list must contain for each course: “the accreditation status of each course of study”, “the qualification(s) offered”, “whether the qualification is recognised in the Australian Qualifications Framework”, “confirmation of recognition of each course of study by the relevant professional body(ies) if such recognition is required for registration of graduates to practise”, “whether each course of study is authorised to be offered to international students studying on an Australian student visa”, “the duration of each course of study”, and the credit and recognition-of-prior-learning policy.

The host regulator’s accreditation file. Malaysia’s Code of Practice for Programme Accreditation shows what a host regulator collects when a programme is delivered under a collaboration. The application asks for the programme name “as in the scroll to be awarded”, the awarding body, and a table recording “Name of Programme / MQF Level / Awarding Body / Location conducted”. Where premises are involved it asks for the “Name and Location of the Premises (main campus / branch campuses / regional centre)”. And it asks the applicant to attach, among other things:

• “Proof of collaboration between HEP and the collaborative partner such as copy of the Validation Report of the collaborative partner and the Memorandum of Agreement (MoA)”
• “Proof of approval and supporting letter to conduct the programme from certification bodies/awarding bodies/examination bodies”
• “A copy of the programme specification as conducted by the collaborative partner (eg. Handbook)”
• “A sample of scroll to be awarded should be attached.”

Two footnotes on that form define the vocabulary you will meet elsewhere. A validation report “is an evaluation by the collaborative partner on the readiness and capability of the institution to offer the programme” — a due-diligence document, not an awarding relationship. And the collaborative partner is “the institution who owns the curriculum of the programme and confers the award (franchisor) while the programme delivery is conducted by another institution (franchisee).”

How to read the file for the answers you need

Approach the documents with the four questions that decide everything downstream, and read for those only.

Who confers the award? The agreement and the register entry both name it. QAA’s principle 5 means it cannot be the delivery organisation unless that organisation has degree-awarding powers of its own.

Whose student am I, contractually? England’s framework states the position for subcontracting: “the students studying with a delivery provider are students of the lead provider”. For validated provision, the position runs the other way. Your offer letter and student contract are the documents that settle it for you personally.

Where is this recorded as being delivered? The Australian public-information rule names “locations… including overseas”; the Malaysian form has a “Location conducted” column. Location is a recorded fact, held separately from the awarding body’s name, and several downstream rules read it rather than the certificate.

Which law governs the agreement? QAA’s advice says a transnational agreement should state its jurisdiction. This is the clause that determines where a dispute goes, and it is rarely the same place as the campus.

Questions to put in writing before you enrol

These map one-to-one onto the documents above, and a provider operating under a signed agreement can answer all five without difficulty.

1. Which organisation confers the award, and which organisation am I contractually a student of?
2. Is there a signed agreement in place covering my intake, and was it signed before student registration opened?
3. Where does the awarding body’s own published list of partners record this arrangement, and where does the host regulator record it?
4. What is the programme’s entry in the host register, including the recorded delivery location and the awarding body field?
5. If the arrangement ends before I finish, which document sets out what happens to my registration — and is it a student protection plan clause in the agreement, or a host-country scheme?

A provider that offers a memorandum of understanding in answer to question 2 has answered a different question, on the published definition of what that document is.

What this page does not do

It does not assess any university’s partnership, and it does not say whether any particular arrangement is well or badly governed. It sets out what documents exist, what published guidance expects them to contain, and which of them you can read yourself. Where an approval decision has been made, the body that made it is the only one that can explain it.

Related

• Branch campus, franchised, validated, twinned, joint — the arrangement types the paperwork will name.
• How to find out before you enrol whether a programme is franchised — the four-document paper trail, followed end to end.
• “Awarded by” and “taught by” — the two names, and which one each body follows.
• If your branch campus closes or the partnership ends mid-course — the clauses that matter when an agreement terminates.
• Who actually regulates your branch campus — host regulator, home regulator, or both.