Financial Arrangements
Financial arrangements must be detailed in the Memorandum of Agreement between the University and the partner organisation. If you have a specific question about the financial agreement, contact the partnerships team in Governance and Quality Enhancement (GQE). All signed contracts are held in the GQE office.
There will normally be a fee charged for the development of new programmes and for validation events. This fee is in addition to the annual fees payable. It relates to the staff time involved in helping to prepare documentation, plus the organisation of the validation event itself. Approval lasts for five years. After that a review and revalidation must take place, for which there will be a further fee.
Once approved, partners will be charged annually for the costs of quality assurance, academic support and student administration. Some collaborations will include a de minimis payment, whereby a minimum fee will be payable to QMU every year, regardless of how many students are registered on the programme. This is to ensure that QMU's fixed costs are covered.
Invoices are normally issued in December by the Assistant Secretary (Records and Academic Administration). In most partnerships, QMU invoices the partner and the partner charges fees to students or sponsoring employers.
For many programmes, a separate project code will be set up for internal QMU accounting. Travel and other expenses will normally be charged to this budget. CALs should liaise with their School Manager for advice on how to handle financial processes.
Regular meetings will be held between the Dean, Collaborative Academic Lead and Partnership Development Manager to review the status of the financial memorandum for each collaboration. It is common to review fees every 3-5 years.
