PGR Visiting student policy
Informatics policy on visiting postgraduate research students.
Visitor definitions
A PGR Visiting Student is a student actively registered/matriculated on a degree programme at their home institution, who is visiting the University of Edinburgh to undertake a non-credit bearing research visit, under the supervision of an academic member of staff. Such students can be undertaking an undergraduate, postgraduate taught, or postgraduate research programme at their home institution.
All PGR Visiting Students who are in attendance at the University for more than two weeks must be registered on EUCLID. This means that it is now no longer possible to host a PGR Visiting Student from another institution, for more than 14 days (no more than 12 months), without matriculating them with the University of Edinburgh. The School administers incoming visiting students in accordance with the University Visiting and Non-Graduating Student Policy and Procedure:
Visiting and Non-Graduating Student Policy and Procedure
Reciprocal agreements
PGR Visiting Students who are on reciprocal exchange programmes are governed by the relevant University-approved Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or Memorandum of Agreement (MoA). These students may not be liable for fees, dependent on the terms and conditions of the relevant MoU/MoA. Further information on these fee status agreements is available from the Edinburgh Global.
Visiting PGR tuition fees
PGR Visiting Students must be recorded in the student record even when they are not undertaking any taught courses. The fee arrangements for PGR Visiting Students who are on reciprocal exchange programmes are governed by the relevant University-approved MoU or MoA. These students may not be liable for fees, dependent on the terms and conditions of the relevant MoU/MoA. PGR Visiting Students whose fee status is not covered by a reciprocal exchange programme who are admitted for up to twelve weeks are not charged a fee.
PGR Visiting Students whose fee status is not covered by a reciprocal exchange programme OR who are admitted for more than twelve weeks are charged a flat rate fee (regardless of fee status classification) for up to the next nine months, which is standard across the University.
Visiting PGR fees cannot be waived under the UoE PGR Fee Waiver policy, therefore if a supervisor wishes to pay the fee on behalf of the student, they will need to provide funding from an appropriate (non-School) source.
Ad-hoc programmes, e.g. for summer schools or specialist international visits, are set up individually. Advice must be sought from College Office who will assist with the creation of programme codes and fee setting.
Fee Information for Visiting Students
Erasmus+ Traineeships
Visiting students on an Erasmus+ Traineeship are treated the same as all other visiting students of more than 14 days. If a student is attending UoE on an Erasmus+ Traineeship then they will receive some financial support from the Erasmus+ programme. The University of Edinburgh does not contribute financially, the University only provides liability insurance.
Please follow the normal application and admissions procedure (below) if you have an Erasmus+ student who wishes to visit the School.
The Erasmus Charter dictates that as the University is a member of the Erasmus programme, tuition fees cannot be charged, so Erasmus+ trainees can visit for a maximum of 3 months.
The new Erasmus requirements stipulate that an inter-institutional agreement must now be signed for Erasmus+ traineeships (this was not the case in previous years). As the process of signing this agreement is organised in coordination with Edinburgh Global, the IGS should be notified of prospective Erasmus+ traineeship visitors 6 months in advance of their start date.
Application & admission procedures
Step 1 - Request approval of offer of admission by Director of Informatics Graduate School
All requests for admission of PGR Visiting Students must be considered and approved by the Director of Informatics Graduate School.
A supervisor who wishes to host a PGR Visiting Student are expected to have interviewed the student and discussed the visiting arrangements before proceeding with a request for an offer of admission by the Academic Selector.
If a supervisor does wish for an offer of admission to be made to a PGR Visiting Students, then they should get in contact with their Institute Academic Selector and ask them to make an admission request via submission of an SD webmark form - the blank SD webmark form is available here: https://webmark.inf.ed.ac.uk/group/selector.
Information that needs to be provided in the SD webmark form is as follows:
- Name of student (NB: they won't have a UUN at this stage)
- Programme of study (NB: this will be Visiting PGR - X months)
- Interview date, names of interviewer/s
- Main reasons for recommendation / request for admission - this must include a statement of support confirming Edinburgh supervision arrangements and the purpose of the research visit, plus the benefits of the visit to the School.
- Institute hosting the visit
- Hosting supervisor
- Requested start date**/***
* A visiting PGR student will be permitted to register on an Informatics visiting PGR programme ONCE in any 12 month rolling period; multiple split visits (e.g. 3 months on programme, 1 month break, 3 months on programme) are not permitted.
** Home PGR visiting students, including EU nationals with EUSS pre- or settled status, must be nominated to IGS at least 4 weeks in advance on the proposed programme start date . This is to allow enough time for IGS to collate the admissions documentation and create the student record.
*** Overseas PGR visiting students, including EU nationals without EUSS status, who need a student visa must be nominated to IGS at least 3 months in advance of the proposed programme start date. This is to allow enough time to create the student record, as well as allowing time for immigration processes to be completed.
If the Director of IGS approves the offer of admission, the IGS will confirm this with the supervisor and academic selector by email. The supervisor should then provide the email address of the student, so that IGS can contact them in regard to submitting the necessary documentation for the EUCLID application record.
Step 2 - Processing the EUCLID Application and Offer Letter
PGR Visiting Students must have completed application and admissions procedures before commencing their period of visitation.
Following approval of the offer of admission by the Director of IGS, the PGR Visiting Students or the supervisor will need to provide the IGS with the following information/documentation:
- funding information (i.e. who will be paying the admission or tuition fee)
- a letter confirming the students registration on a PG programme at their home institution
- a reference from their principal supervisor at their home institution
- proof of English language proficiency to the University-specified standard (only required for visits of more than 12 weeks). Information relating to English language requirements can be found here.
Only once all the above documents have been provided, will the IGS assign the student to the appropriate PGR visiting programme code with a formal programme start date and complete registration on EUCLID.
The IGS will issue an offer letter to the student, via email (as the system does not automatically generate one). If necessary, an ATAS support statement will also be provided. Visiting students will be registered on EUCLID and issued with an offer letter only after the required documents have been received and verified.
It is the responsibility of the PGR Visiting Student to ensure they are on the correct visa, if applicable, for the duration of their visit.
Further student systems advice on the visiting student record creation process is available at: http://www.studentsystems.ed.ac.uk/staff/User_Guides/
Desk / space provision
PGR Visiting Students are not allocated any desk space within the Informatics estate. Please consult the School's Room Allocation policy for further information on what desk facilities these students can use whilst visiting.
Additional administrative information
Informatics Student Services staff do not administer the recruitment of Visiting Researchers/Academics. These visitors can be recruited via the University's Visiting Academic or Sponsored Researcher schemes, without the need to matriculate or admit the individual via EUCLID. Please contact the appropriate Level Admin / Research Support Office for further information, as they are responsible for registering Visiting Researchers/Academics via the VRS.
Policy Approved by: Strategy Committee 25/06/2014
Policy update approved by IGS Exec 08/02/2023