Please follow these steps if your department is renewing an existing agreement or developing a new agreement. (Note: “department” is used here but may also refer to a center, program, or institute within the College.)
International agreement procedure
Planning
Contact the College International Office to outline what you want to do.
In some instances, a formal agreement may not be necessary. A letter from your department to your counterpart at the overseas institution may be sufficient, as long as there is no plan for the exchange of students (either undergraduate or graduate) nor are there any financial implications beyond what the department can provide from its own funds or in-kind resources. At this stage, letters that are jointly signed by your department and a representative of the overseas institution are prohibited. Feel free to request a sample letter from College International if you are unsure.
Exchange emails with the counterpart department to review the terms of the activity. College International expects that the department will handle these communications directly, unless the department needs College International assistance.
Drafting
College International can supply the department with the appropriate agreement template (or it may be downloaded from OVPIA’s Office of International Partnerships). The department should draft the agreement and send to College International for review and advice. The department will then send the draft agreement to its counterparts at the other university.
If the partner institution has drafted the agreement instead, review it carefully to ensure that it fully reflects the agreed-upon content. Send to College International with your approval and ask for a review; College International staff can edit the document to make sure that it includes all of IU’s required components and that any English translation reads adequately.
Once the agreement document is in its final draft, the department can prepare its submission to the Office of International Partnerships in the Office of the Vice President for International Affairs (OVPIA) for review and consideration for approval by the Offshore Programs and International Affiliations Committee.
Application
The department will need to prepare its application for the Offshore Programs and International Affiliations Committee. College International can send you the preview document with the questions that must be addressed. The answers you supply will be pasted into a form in the OVPIA application portal (see step 9). You may complete this in stages, as the portal allows you to save a partially completed submission. Please note that OVPIA prefers short, substantive responses to the questions, and the response provided for the brief summary is used for the public description of the agreement.
The department representative must have the approval of the Chair before submitting the agreement to OVPIA. In addition, a letter or email of support from the relevant associate dean or dean must be included with the submission.
The following items will be provided to OVPIA:
- Application (online form)
- Agreement (uploaded attachment)
- Support Letter/Email (uploaded PDF attachment)
Save a copy of the application and share it with College International.
Finalizing
After the submission is uploaded, OVPIA will route it to the Provost, Offshore Programs and International Affiliations Committee, IU General Counsel, the IU Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer, and the President. The agreement may require further edits after these reviews. If a version of the agreement in the partner’s language is also to be signed, the department must provide it at this time. Not all agreements require all these signatures. College International and OVPIA can help determine which signatures are needed and route the agreement properly.
Upon approval, two hard copies of the signed documents will be sent to College International, who will work with the department to secure the remaining signatures. For IU, this involves signatures within the College – the associate dean and perhaps the department chair. For the partner university, the department will obtain signatures of the appropriate representative(s). This may be done by sending the two original documents by express mail (FedEx) so that the partner may sign them, keep one copy for itself, and return the other to the department. Alternatively, a representative of the department or a member of the IU administration traveling to the partner country can obtain signatures in person; leaving one copy and retaining the other for IU. In some instances, a special signing ceremony may be arranged to coincide with a senior official’s travel.
A final, fully signed scanned copy of the agreement must be provided to OVPIA’s Office of International Partnerships (partner@iu.edu).
After retaining a copy for themselves, departments should send the signed hard copy of the agreement to College International, Owen Hall Room 205A.