The strategic planning and approval of academic partnerships
The terms of reference of the School’s Academic Development Committee (ADC - a sub-committee of Academic Board) include responsibility for considering matters relating to partnerships and collaborations. The committee, with the support of the Academic Development Directorate, is responsible for the process of due diligence which is required before the School can enter into a partnership which includes the possibility of Collaborative Provision. This includes the decision to develop collaborative provision with an existing partner. Partnerships which clearly exclude the possibility of collaborative provision can be approved at a Faculty level.
Proposals for partnerships will be included and considered within Faculty plans as part of the normal planning process, and these plans will feed into the Learning and Teaching Sub-Strategy. ADC will consider proposals for partnerships within their monitoring of the Learning and Teaching Sub-Strategy, and will request details from the Faculty to help them to ascertain the financial and academic suitability of the proposed partner institution.
Where a partnership leads to proposals for new provision, whether collaborative or offered solely by the School, or for amendments to existing provision, these are considered according to the usual programme approval/amendment processes at Departmental, Faculty and School level. Any inclusion within an existing programme of arrangements involving a partner institution, whether defined as collaborative provision or not, should be considered a major amendment and referred to the Joint Faculty Programme Panel for consideration.
SOAS does not currently offer any joint taught degrees in collaboration with degree-awarding bodies outside the University of London. The development of joint Masters degrees can be inferred to have been approved in principle, however, by Governing Body (see Principles for academic partnerships), and has been discussed with a number of overseas universities, with agreements to explore and develop specific programmes in the future being signed in some cases and logged in the Directorate’s database of partnerships. Any specific arrangement would need to be approved strategically within the Faculty and School planning process described above, at which stage the Academic Development Directorate would become involved in supporting the Department or Faculty as the partnership was established and programme(s) developed.
In summary, the following types of proposal could arise through the Faculty
planning process:
- a new partnership
- with teaching and learning aspects but no collaborative provision
- with collaborative provision
- a new programme or amendments to an existing programme
- including collaborative provision with an existing CP partner
- including collaborative provision with a new partner or a partner not previously involved in collaborative provision with SOAS
- including non-collaborative provision which involves an existing partner
- including non-collaborative provision which involves a new partner
| Route | FLTC and FB | ADC | JFPP and LTQC (paperwork to include MoU) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | To approve partnership and recommend to LTQC any associated new/amended programmes | No | Only if a new or amended programme |
| 2 | Must recommend to both ADC and LTQC | Yes, with full details of financial and academic standing of proposes partner | After ADC satisfied |
| 3 | To recommend to LTQC the new/amended programmes | No | Yes |
| 4 | Must recommend to both ADC and LTQC | Yes, with full details of financial and academic standing of proposes partner | After ADC is satisfied |
| 5 | To recommend to LTQC the new/amended programmes | No | Yes |
| 6 | To approve partnership and recommend to LTQC any associated new/amended programmes | No | Yes |
