The purpose of a university

Teaching and research

The statutory funding councils make grants of public money to HEIs on condition that it is spent on teaching and research and only such other activities as support those two.

The Oxford and Cambridge Act, 1877 defined the purpose of a university in terms of its duty to foster 'religion, education, learning and research', and these objectives ( though the mention of religion has quietly been dropped) are still to be found in Cambridge's statutes as part of the job-description of University Teaching Officers and in Cambridge's latest publications about the evolution of its governance arrangements.

Chartered universities are both ' teaching' and 'examining' bodies and have a duty to " provide instruction in such branches of learning as the University may think fit and shall make provision for research and for the advancement and dissemination of knowledge" (Charter of the University of Liverpool).

The same dual responsibility falls upon the post-1992 universities which are statutory corporations.

Degree-awarding powers

Chartered universities also ' have the power to grant and confer degrees, diplomas, certificates and other academic distinctions, whether honorary, substantive or otherwise, and such degrees, diploma, certificates and distinctions shall be granted, conferred and held subject to such provision as may be made by the Statutes of the University' (Charter of the University of Liverpool).

The conduct of research and 'the advancement and dissemination of knowledge' receive far less detailed treatment in the standard charters than the provision of teaching leading to the award of degrees.

In the case of the 'new' universities, authority to award degrees is conferred by statute under the 1992 Act in the following terms:

(a) awards granted to persons who complete an appropriate course of study and satisfy an appropriate assessment, [taught courses] and
(b) awards granted to persons who complete an appropriate programme of supervised research and satisfy an appropriate assessment [research degrees],
and in this section "award" means any degree, diploma, certificate or other academic award or distinction and "assessment" includes examination and test.

(3) An institution for the time being specified in such an order may grant any award of a kind mentioned in subsection (2)(a) or (b) above which it is competent to grant by virtue of the order to persons who complete the appropriate course of study or, as the case may be, programme of supervised research on or after the date specified in the order.
(b) grant degrees to members of the academic and other staff of the institution
[ This does not appear to have an exact counterpart in Oxford and Cambridge, which accord a mere 'MA status' to members of the Regent House and Congregation who are not actual MAs of either university]
(5) Any power conferred on an institution to grant awards in pursuance of this section includes power—
(a) to authorise other institutions to do so on behalf of the institution,

[ But not further so to delegate ]

(b) to do so jointly with another institution, and

[ whether this can lead to one degree or two and whether universities can grant joint degrees can potentially become the subject of dispute ]

(c) to deprive any person of any award granted to him by or on behalf of the institution in pursuance of this section (or, in the case of an award granted to him by the institution and another institution jointly, to do so jointly with the other institution).
(6) It shall be for the institution to determine in accordance with any relevant provisions of the instruments relating to or regulating the institution the courses of study or programmes of research, and the assessments, which are appropriate for the grant of any award and the terms and conditions on which any of the powers conferred under this section may be exercised.

Degree-awarding powers and the way in which they can be obtained by institutions which do not yet possess them, are now covered by ground-rules set out in full on the Quality Assurance Agency website. http://www.qaa.ac.uk/reviews/dap/default.asp

Potential problem-areas where disputes may arise:

At the time when such more or less standard terms were included in the charters of the chartered universities and such universal terms imposed on the 'new' universities, it was not yet clear that students were in contract with universities and that failure to provide the courses as promised and to an appropriate standard could constitute a breach of contract as well as a breach of the university's statutes.

A high-level dispute involving a considerable number of students can arise if it is not made clear, for example:

Who can make decisions to close a department
Who can change the content of a course

Professional and vocational qualifications