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4 August 2005 HEFCE logo
To  Heads of HEFCE-funded higher education institutions
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Circular letter number 21/2005

For further information contact Vanessa Conte, tel 0117 931 7254, e-mail v.conte@hefce.ac.uk

Dear Vice-Chancellor or Principal

Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS): revised arrangements in England

1.    As you will be aware, arrangements for the Overseas Research Students Awards Scheme (ORSAS) are to be revised with effect from 2006-07, in order to significantly reduce the burden on institutions (see HEFCE Circular letter 15/2005). This letter provides more detailed information about the operation of the revised arrangements in England, drawing particular attention to actions which institutions will need to take in 2005-06 in order to select their award holders for 2006-07. It also provides information about transitional arrangements which will apply in 2005-06.

Revised arrangements

2.    The national competition which was conducted by Universities UK in spring 2005 to select the new ORSAS award holders for the 2005-06 academic year is the last such competition. For 2006-07 onwards, institutions across the UK will be responsible for selecting their own award holders, against assured formula-based allocations.

Allocations

3.    In England, institutions' allocations for 2006-07 will be based on the average value of the ORSAS payments which they have received over the three years 2002-03 to 2004-05, subject to provision for a minimum level of award, as described below. These allocations will cover both new awards and renewals (continuing awards).

4.    All institutions which have received any ORSAS funding during the three years 2002-03 to 2004-05 will receive a minimum award equivalent to the cost of one award at that institution. This will ensure that institutions which have held only one or two awards during the qualifying period will receive a meaningful level of funding. Such institutions will be able to offer either one new one-year award annually or, in the case of three-year awards for PhD students, one new award every three years.

5.    We will announce the ORSAS allocations for 2006-07 in March 2006, when the annual grant announcement is made. The timing of announcements of allocations in subsequent years will be similar. This will enable institutions to maintain the existing ORSAS timetable, if they wish, in which offers of new awards are made in April or May each year.

6.    It is envisaged that, in subsequent years, institutions' allocations will be uplifted in line with GDP, subject to the availability of resources.

Terms of funding

7.    The terms of the funding are unchanged, and can be summarised as follows:

  • the objective of the ORSAS scheme is to encourage high quality overseas postgraduate research students to undertake their research in the UK
  • the funding should be used to provide awards to full-time postgraduate students who are classified as 'overseas' for tuition fee purposes
  • awards must be made for the difference between the home tuition fee for postgraduate research students and the institution's overseas tuition fee for the relevant subject
  • awards can be held for a maximum of three years
  • ORSAS awards may only be made up to the value of each institution's ORSAS allocation. Additional awards funded from other sources should not be associated with the ORSAS name.

8.    Following the allocation of awards on the basis described above, institutions may be left with a balance of funding which is insufficient to support a further full award. In such cases, this balance of funding should be carried over for use the following year.

9.    Award maintenance issues (such as students' leave of absences, suspensions, transfers and withdrawals) will be managed by each institution in line with the objectives of the scheme and the terms of funding listed above.

Selection of candidates

10.    Institutions will be responsible for selecting their own award holders for 2006-07 and beyond. Institutions will therefore need to take action in the 2005-06 academic year in order to select their new award holders for 2006-07. The new arrangements should imply little additional work for institutions beyond formalising the procedures which they have used in the past to select candidates for submission to the national ORSAS panels. They will also have the benefit of enabling institutions to operate on the basis of assured funding.

11.    As in previous years, award holders should be selected solely on the basis of academic excellence and research potential, having regard to relevant equal opportunities legislation.

12.    The details of operational arrangements will be left to institutions' discretion. However, we will provide institutions with a generic application form template which they may choose to adapt for their own use.

Renewals

13.    As noted above, institutions' formula-based allocations will cover both new and continuing awards. Before allocating new awards for 2006-07 (and subsequent years) institutions should therefore first establish how many of their existing awards will require renewal, as this will determine how much of their allocation is available for new awards.

Publicity

14.    Institutions will be expected to continue to refer to the availability of ORSAS awards in their postgraduate prospectus and other relevant promotional material. Additionally, the UK higher education funding bodies have developed a web-site which will provide information about ORSAS, in order to maintain the visibility of the scheme at the UK level. The new web-site address is www.orsas.ac.uk.

Payment arrangements

15.    HEFCE will pay institutions' formula-based allocations in full in October each year, starting in October 2006.

16.    It will no longer be necessary for institutions to issue invoices to secure the payment of their awards.

Monitoring arrangements

17.    ORSAS expenditure will be monitored by HEFCE through the established annual monitoring statement and, we envisage, through the Higher Education Statistics Agency from 2007 onwards.

Transitional arrangements

Payment of outstanding awards for 2004-05

18.    The ORSAS office, based at Universities UK, which has been responsible for processing institutions' invoices for ORSAS payments, will close on 31 August 2005, having processed all invoices submitted for 2004-05 awards. From that point, any questions relating to the policy and funding of the scheme in England should be addressed to HEFCE.

19.    Institutions have been requested to submit any remaining invoices for the 2004-05 academic year to the ORSAS office no later than Friday 5 August 2005. Invoices received after this date will be forwarded to HEFCE for processing and may be subject to delay. The final deadline for submitting invoices is Friday 26 August 2005.

Payment for 2005-06

20.    2005-06 will be a transitional year: the formula-based allocation arrangements described in paragraphs 3-7 above will not yet have come into effect, but the ORSAS office will have closed. In that year, we will make a payment to institutions in October 2005 which will consist of 85 per cent of the value of the new awards offered to successful candidates in the 2005 competition, and 100 per cent of the value of the renewals for 2005-06 which institutions have already notified to the ORSAS office. (The figure of 85 per cent for the initial payment for new awards reflects the fact that, normally, a proportion of the awards offered through the competition are not taken up.)

21.    In July 2006, we will ask institutions to confirm the value of new and continuing awards actually taken up during 2005-06, and will then generate a single adjustment payment or reclaim funding as applicable.

22.    From 2006-07 onwards, the formula-based payment arrangements described above will come into effect.

Review

23.    The revised arrangements have been approved for three years in the first instance, from 2006-07 to 2008-09 inclusive, and will be subject to review in 2007-08. Assuming continuation of the scheme beyond 2008-09, we may modify our allocation formula at that point to take account of changes in institutions' shares of postgraduate research student funding and overseas student numbers.

Institutional contacts

24.    Participating institutions will be listed on the new ORSAS web-site, and web links will be provided to help potential applicants and other interested parties. We also envisage listing generic e-mail addresses for the person responsible for the administration of ORSAS in each institution. We do not propose to list any personal e-mail addresses or telephone numbers.

25.    Institutions are invited to forward the appropriate generic e-mail address to Sam Bennett, s.bennett@hefce.ac.uk, with the words 'ORSAS contact' in the e-mail subject line, by 19 August 2005. This will ensure that an e-mail contact for your institution appears on the web-site from the outset.

Yours sincerely

Rama Thirunamachandran
Director (Research and Knowledge Transfer)