Global education opportunities

Through entry agreements, students are considered for admission (but not guaranteed entry) after successful completion of an award (or part of an award) at a partner institution. Our ‘1+1’ and ‘1+1+1’ entry agreements contribute to rich partnerships in countries that offer two and three-year Masters programmes. Instead of undertaking both years at their home university, students spend their first year at their home institution and second year doing a Leeds Masters programme to gain two postgraduate awards and an international study experience.

We work with a range of partners worldwide to offer study routes via entry agreements. Since 2008, we have been proud partners of one of the most prestigious Law Schools in China, East China University of Political Science and Law (ECUPL). In addition to a successful exchange and summer school agreement, each year we welcome several students at Bachelors and Masters level from ECUPL through our agreements in the areas of Law and Politics.   

An articulation agreement is a formalised arrangement where students who have successfully part-completed a programme at a partner institution is considered for advanced entry onto a degree programme at Leeds.

A common model is a ‘2+2’ arrangement, with partners who offer four-year undergraduate degrees. Students study their first two years of a degree programme at a partner university, and then can apply for advanced entry onto a degree programme at Leeds to study for two more years. Students will then graduate with degrees from both Leeds and the partner institution. 

One of our partners is Taylor’s University in Malaysia.The University of Leeds and Taylor’s have worked together for several years on many successful advanced entry agreements. Each year, students from Taylor’s join level two or three of undergraduate programmes across eleven schools at Leeds: Law, Food Science, Education, Politics and International Studies, Sociology and Social Policy, Biological Sciences, Design, Engineering, Performance and Cultural Industries, and Computing. At the end of their studies, students graduate with a Leeds degree.  

The University of Leeds offers a range of collaborative models at PhD level. This includes Joint and Dual PhD awards, Split-site PhD, joint supervision arrangements, and postgraduate researcher mobility. Students enrolled in such programs have the unique opportunity to be supervised by experts from each participating institution, accessing greater resources and facilities. These arrangements can result in either two separate PhD awards or a single jointly-awarded degree.

An example of our collaboration at PhD level is our collaboration with Southwest Jiaotong University on our Dual PhD programme, offered by the Schools of Mechanical Engineering, Chemical and Process Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computing, and Electronic and Electrical Engineering.

Students on this four-year PhD programme undertake two years of study and research at each institution, and graduate with a dual PhD, represented by separate awards from both the University of Leeds and Southwest Jiaotong University. The Dual PhD programme supports increased student and staff mobility and currently focuses on the shared research interests of the institutions. 

Off-campus delivery refers to a university degree programme that is conducted away from the main campus of the University of Leeds. As a University, we have a long history of delivering different types of training and student education overseas.

For example,we deliver the Masters in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (MA TESOL) programme in partnership with Guangdong University of Foreign Studies (GDUFS) in China. The MA TESOL programme, established in 2006, is delivered entirely on-site at GDUFS by staff from both the University of Leeds and GDUFS.

The University of Leeds is actively seeking international partners to co-design and co-deliver Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) modules to prepare our students for a rapidly changing world with partners across the world. We currently facilitate COIL modules with partners in the US, Mexico, Netherlands, and Australia, and want to expand this portfolio further.

If your institution would like to join us in developing world-class and relevant education through COIL collaborations in any discipline, please email our COIL Lead, Dr Martin Ward via m.s.ward@leeds.ac.uk.