Establishing international university collaborations

Strategic considerations must be made on faculty level and for the university as a whole, for example regarding correlation of key research priorities, rankings, a suitable range of courses, the teaching language, a minimum level of interest in a certain number of chairs or departments and issues related to faculty or university policy such as town twinnings or participation in certain funding programmes.
As soon as the aims of the collaboration and the areas of the University which will be affected by the collaboration have been defined, it is time to involve the relevant committees in the planning. Before a contract is signed, consent must be sought from the department (contract on departmental/chair level), the faculty (contract on faculty level) or several faculties (on university level).

The contractual partners must first agree on what the purpose of the contract is and which groups of people could be affected by it. If the project only affects the research projects of a chair, an agreement at chair level will probably be sufficient. If the agreement includes student mobility, the contract must be made at faculty level as a minimum requirement. Various committees must be involved in the approval process, depending on the level of the contract. Contract negotiations with the partner university take place at subject level. We recommend that all the relevant employees of your institute or your faculty, if applicable, are involved in the decision-making process.

As a rule, at least one person must be appointed to take on academic responsibility for student exchanges and the collaboration as a whole. This person coordinates with the partner university about the number of students who can participate in the exchange and with which requirements. Aspects such as language skills, subject knowledge or the duration of exchanges must also be taken into consideration. In addition, the duration and format of the collaboration, that is, whether participants are enrolled as students at the host university, if they work in the laboratory or if they complete placements, must also be defined.

Contracts at the university level are signed by the President after being checked by the Central Office for International Affairs (S-International) and Legal Affairs and Academic Quality Management (L1). Contracts at the university level require the involvement of at least two faculties and at least five professors.

Contracts that only involve one faculty are usually signed by the Dean of the faculty after being checked by Legal Affairs and Academic Quality Management (L1). The Office for International Affairs is not involved in checking the contract in this case.

Contracts that only involve one chair or department are signed by the holder of the chair or the speaker of the department.

A copy of each international university cooperation agreement must be submitted to the Office for International Affairs. All university collaborations are recorded in the database at the Office for International Affairs so that students can search for information about foreign exchanges. The Office is also responsible for ensuring the cooperation agreement is stored in the filing department and that a file reference number is created for it.