Quality Assurance

Partner staff

The university works closely with a network of partners in the UK and overseas. The university's partnerships allow us to disseminate knowledge on an international scale, meeting the international demand for UK education. Approval of potential organisations to become partners of the university for academic delivery, and the renewal of existing partnerships is overseen by the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC). Faculties may set up formal partnership arrangements and other arrangements with external partners which permit student entry to on-campus programmes of study. Such arrangements include: articulation arrangements, external credit rating arrangements and progression agreements.

This page is managed in conjunction with the International Partnerships and Mobility Team.

Please ensure that when making changes to any module or programme you consult the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) guidance and timescales to understand the requirements for student and staff consultation. You can find the documents here. If in any doubt, please contact the University Quality Team on quality@gre.ac.uk

Welcome

You can navigate the menu options below by clicking on the headings.

Setting up a new partnership

Only approved partners can offer programmes in collaboration with the university.

The appraisal of prospective new partnerships, and their periodic re-appraisal, is conducted by the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC). A prospective partner (other than a UK degree-awarding body) needs to demonstrate it can offer an appropriate higher education environment for students before it can be considered for partnership delivery of a University of Greenwich award.

The appraisal of prospective partnerships is a two-stage process. At stage 1, PPMC assess the Prospective Partner Rationale to ensure that the proposal is in line with the university's mission and strategic objectives.

Forms

Forms to submit to Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC) for the approval of a new partnership:

Stage 1

Form PSG1 should be completed for TNE partners only after completing the Initial Stages of Identifying a New Partner. Contact the International and Mobility Office on how this is done at ipo@greenwich.ac.uk

Stage 2

Useful Documents

Setting up an articulation arrangement

An articulation agreement provides a guarantee that one or more cohorts of students, who achieve an agreed standard on a programme at an external organisation, are entitled to progress to a particular stage of a specific award-bearing programme at the University of Greenwich.

If you are seeking to establish a new Articulation Agreement you must secure approval from your faculty and endorsement from the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC).

Forms

Forms to submit to Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC):

Setting up an external credit rating arrangement

External credit-rating is the process by which the university makes a judgement about the volume and level of academic credit that can be awarded for modules or training programmes offered by other institutions or agencies.

These modules or training programmes are predominantly subject to the regulations and quality regime of organisations offering such training. Students who successfully complete them will be entitled to claim that amount of credit against module(s) at the university through the Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) process.

Forms

Forms to submit to PPMC:

Useful Documents

Setting up a progression arrangement

A progression agreement is similar to an articulation agreement in that it represents a formal link between the university and another organisation, with a view to the admission of students to associated programmes at the university.

As with an articulation agreement, the relationship is based on an evaluation by the university of the curriculum for the qualification offered by the other organisation. However, in the case of progression agreements there is no guarantee of entry for cohorts of students and progression may not necessarily be limited to specific programmes of study, as it would be in an articulation agreement.

If you are seeking to establish a Progression Agreement you must secure approval from your faculty and endorsement from Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC).

Forms

Forms to submit to Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC):

Useful Documents

Preparing for a Partnership Review

The reappraisal of all partnerships occur once every five years or earlier if necessary.

The PPMC oversees the reappraisal of all partnerships once every five years or earlier if necessary (e.g., there are significant concerns about the partnership relationship.) All Partnership Review Events will be reviewed by a partnership review panel. The configuration of the panel must be approved by the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC).

The final PPMC meeting of the year considers and agrees a rolling partnership review schedule for the next set of review events. Partners due to be reviewed in the next academic year would be supported by the International Partnership Manager / Partnership Manager who will work with the partner to compile due diligence information for consideration alongside the PWG4 forms prepared by the faculties.

Forms

Forms to submit to PPMC:

Useful Documents

Discontinuing a partnership

To formally discontinue a partnership a discontinuation proposal must be presented to the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC).

Proposals to discontinue a partnership requires input from the International Office and must clearly identify the reasons for the discontinuation, detail efforts made by the collaborating faculties to address concerns, and include a clear outline of the arrangements for currently enrolled students to complete their programme of studies.

Forms

Forms to submit to Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC):

Useful Documents

Annual Institutional Review

All of the university's partners are expected to report annually on their higher education provision through an Annual Institutional Review (AIR).

AIRs provide the university with an opportunity to identify common issues within its network of partners as well as specific themes pertinent to individual partners. AIRs should supply a critical overview of the support the partner provides for its HE programmes and students, and of the relationship with the university. The university will provide the relevant senior manager at partner institutions with AIRs pre-populated with standard sets of university-held information in the summer of each year. Completed AIRs from partners, including comments from the relevant faculties, are evaluated by the Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC). Partners receive a formal response to their AIRs prepared on the basis of the discussion by Programmes & Partnerships Management Committee (PPMC).

AIRs are initiated by the International Partnerships and Mobility Office.

You can find out more at their website: https://www.gre.ac.uk/collaborations

And contact them via email: IPO@gre.ac.uk

Link Tutors

Link Tutors have a dual role in providing assistance and support to partner institutions and providing reassurance to the university that the partnership is operating appropriately.

In addition to ensuring ongoing dialogue through email, telephone and video conferencing, Link Tutors will undertake one or two visits to partner institutions during the year.

There is a private MS Teams site:

If you do not have access please email ipo@greenwich.ac.uk.

Forms

Link Tutor visits assist faculties in the process of monitoring partnership programme delivery and should complete a summary of outcomes using the new MS Form template here:

Please note, the MS Form cannot be saved and must be completed in one, or multiple, submissions. If you would like to write your responses offline ready to copy and paste into the MS Form then please download the link below.

At our February 2022 Link Tutor Workshop we removed the old Excel spreadsheet method, and are moving forward with MS Forms. We took lots of valuable feedback and have updated the report so you will find the questions and order have changed.

Useful Documents

University of Greenwich Senior Management Report

Senior managers at the university are asked to submit a report summarising their visit.

Forms

Useful Documents

  • A guidance document will be updated here soon.