Receiving your award
Award and Certificates
The University of Portsmouth offers a range of courses which carry a variety of award titles. The specific award you achieve will be based on your registered course of study and your academic achievement.
Not all courses entitle a student to attend a graduation ceremony, but most courses will entitle a student to some form of formal recognition of achievement, such as a certificate, diploma supplement or letter of verification.
Award Documents FAQ
Your entitlement to attend graduation depends on your course of study and your eligibility to attend is based on your academic achievement. Details on eligibility can be found here.
In general, if you are studying a course at the University of Portsmouth, either in Portsmouth, distance learning or at our London campus that has one of the following award designations, you should be entitled to attend a graduation ceremony:
- A Bachelor’s Ordinary Degree or a Degree with Honours, of Arts (BA), Science (BSc), Engineering (BEng), Law (LLB), Nursing (BN) or Economics (BSc Econ);
- A Master’s or an Integrated Master’s degree
- A CertEd, CertHE, HNC or HND
- A DipHE
- A FdA or FdEng
- A PGCert, PGCE, GradDip or PGDip
- MPhil or PhD
In some cases, if you are studying at one of our partner institutions you may also be entitled to attend a University of Portsmouth graduation ceremony. You should check with your home institution first.
For any other queries about whether your course of study entitles you to attend a graduation ceremony or about academic eligibility, please contact the MyPort Information Hub at myport@port.ac.uk
When you complete your degree, you'll receive your award documents confirming your degree and classification. This is made up of an award certificate (parchment) and where applicable, a transcript listing the modules you passed during your studies, and the mark and credit level for each module.
Your award certificate is a coloured certificate showing your name, award title, classification and date of the award. Award classifications include first, upper second, lower second and third for Bachelors degrees and merit and distinction for Postgraduate courses.
Award certificates are printed on watermarked parchment paper with the University crest, and signed by the Vice-Chancellor and Academic Registrar.
Your transcript lists the modules you passed during your studies, and the mark and credit level for each module. If you require a Diploma Supplement, these can be provided on request by emailing parchments@port.ac.uk .
In order to reduce the risk of document fraud, we print your documents on specialist paper. More information about the security features of your award documents can be found here.
Award documents will be sent to the correspondence address on your student record after you have completed your degree and your marks and classification have been verified by the Board of Examiners.
If you are attending a graduation ceremony you may receive your parchment as part of the ceremony arrangements; if not and in any circumstance, award documents will always be sent to you at your correspondence address once the graduation ceremonies are complete.
If you're a postgraduate student completing your studies in September, the exam board for your course may meet between October and mid-December. Award documents issued from these exam boards are posted as soon as possible after the exam board meets.
We will not charge you for your original award documents and for standard postage (we send award documents through Royal Mail). Any requests to use an alternative service will incur a fee.
If it is over six months since your award documents were sent to you and you have not made contact with us, you will have to pay for a replacement set.
If you didn’t update your correspondence address before your documents were sent out and they got lost, you will have to pay for a replacement set.
As standard we don't send award documents by registered mail and therefore tracking information is not available. If your correspondence address is overseas please wait 6-8 weeks for your documents to arrive before contacting us.
As long as you have updated your correspondence address on MyStudentView, we will not charge you for resending a returned award document; however, if you have not updated your correspondence address by the deadline given when we contacted you, you may incur a charge for reposting.
If you have misplaced your award documents you can request replacements. If we are able to verify your original award from the University of Portsmouth we may be able to supply you with replacement documentation or a letter of verification (this will depend on how long ago you achieved your award and the type of award).
We can provide replacement award documents for graduates who were awarded after 1 September 1992 when the University received its awarding powers. However, for graduates who completed their studies before 1999 we are unable to provide replacement transcripts as the University did not retain module marks prior to this date. Please place your order through our online store.
If you studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic (CNAA) between 1969 and 1992 you will need to contact the Open University Validation Service who will provide a proforma certificate.
If you graduated prior to 1969, please email awards@port.ac.uk to check that we are able to fulfil your request before placing your order.
We aim to process your request in 10-15 working days; however at peak times (July and November) this may take longer.
Your award documents will be printed with your full name as shown on your Student View. As these are legal documents we are unable to print them with preferred names. You will receive an email approximately a month before you are due to finish your course showing you what will be printed on your documents. If this is incorrect you need to send a copy of your passport to myport@port.ac.uk.
Like your Birth Certificate, school and other certificates are usually considered to be a “matter of fact”; as long as they were correct at the time they were issued, they will not generally be updated with your new name. If you need to show your certificates to someone and the name is different, you simply show your Birth Certificate, or some other evidence of your previous name, at the same time.
If a spelling or administrative error has been made we will provide a replacement set of documents free of charge.
In circumstances where an individual has corrected their name as a result of gender reassignment, and the individual asks the University to reissue a degree certificate showing this name, this request will be granted free of charge upon production of proof of name.
Once you have received your results, your documents will be printed and posted to your correspondence address. It can take up to two weeks for documents to be delivered in the UK and 6-8 weeks for international addresses. It may take longer during peak periods (July and November). If your documents haven’t arrived after this time, please email parchments@port.ac.uk with your student number and we can investigate for you.
Once you have received your results, your documents will be printed and posted to your correspondence address (or may be available for you to collect after your graduation ceremony in the summer). This is a different address to your home address and term time address. It is really important that you update your correspondence address before you finish your course. You can do this on your Student View.
If you don’t update your correspondence address before your results are published it is possible your documents will get lost. If you haven’t updated your address and your documents get lost you will have to pay for a new set. Replacement certificates and transcripts cost £35 each.
You are permitted to have one copy of your award documents in your possession at any one time; multiple copies cannot be requested. Once a new copy of your award documents are printed, previous copies are rendered invalid. We are able to provide certified true copies instead.
How do I request the verification of my award documents?
There are a number of different verification services available.
We are able to provide letters of verification for graduates who were awarded after 1 September 1992 when the University received its awarding powers. Please place your request through our form.
If you studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic (CNAA) between 1969 and 1992 you will need to contact the Open University Validation Service who will provide a proforma certificate.
If you graduated prior to 1969, please email awards@port.ac.uk to check that we are able to fulfil your request before placing your request.
We aim to process your request in 10-15 working days; however at peak times (July and November) this may take longer.
If you're looking for a personal or character reference from an academic, you'll need to contact the faculty you studied under to see whether this can be arranged. Please email myport@port.ac.uk to request this.
Some companies, educational institutions or government authorities may require you to supply certified award documents.
We are able to certify documents for graduates who were awarded after 1 September 1992 when the University received its awarding powers. Please place your order through our online store.
You will need to send a scanned copy of your original award certificate/transcript as required, this will be stamped, signed and emailed back to you as a pdf. If you need it to be sent to a third party, please include their contact details in your order. If you don’t have your original documents, you will need to purchase a replacement set and then add a certified copy to your order.
We aim to process your request in 10-15 working days; however at peak times (July and November) this may take longer. This service costs £10 per document.
If you studied at Portsmouth Polytechnic (CNAA) between 1969 and 1992 you will need to contact the Open University Validation Service who will provide a proforma certificate.
If you graduated prior to 1969, please email awards@port.ac.uk to check that we are able to fulfil your request before placing your order.
Credential Evaluations
If you are applying for a course of further study or employment in the United States of America or Canada, you will probably need to provide a credential evaluation report. This is a report that verifies what your UK award equates to in the USA or Canada.
The University has an arrangement with World Education Services (WES), please see below for further details, but there are a number of organisations which offer this service which you could choose to use instead.
World Education Services (WES) offer a credential evaluation service and you can find more information about the required documents here.
We aim to process your request in 10-15 working days; however at peak times (July and November) this may take longer. This service costs £10 per document. Please place your order through our online store, along with your WES reference number. Once we receive your documents we'll check your award and stamp and certify the copy before we upload it to the secure WES portal (please see the diagram below for how this works).
If you're an overseas student or a graduate wanting to live or work abroad you may need an Apostille certificate in addition to your parchment. Details on how to do this can be found on the Foreign and Commonwealth website. You will need to appoint a solicitor to legalise the documents on your behalf.
If you are a third party requesting verification for a University of Portsmouth award, this is managed by Prospects Hedd online verification service. There is a small charge per enquiry.
Prospects Hedd is managed by Jisc and has been providing a secure verification service for employers, screening agencies, embassies, councils and other institutions for over nine years. Verification requests through Prospects Hedd can be made to over 125 UK Higher Education Institutions.
How to register
To make an enquiry you need to register with Prospects Hedd by visiting www.hedd.ac.uk.
- Select ‘University of Portsmouth’ from the list of UK higher education institutions and choose the option to 'verify a degree award'.
- You will also be required to upload a hand-signed consent form. Please ensure you adhere to the specific consent requirements before submitting your request as this will result in a delay to your request being actioned. Our consent form template can be found here.
Submitting an enquiry
You’ll need the individual’s name, date of birth, course, qualification, year of graduation and degree result. Dates of attendance will be given alongside the verification response.
To ensure your verification is submitted correctly, and to receive a quick response, we recommend you input the data as per the degree certificate or ask the individual to give you their data as they believe it's recorded in the student records system or at the time of study. The enquiry will then come to us for verification, with a 15 working day turnaround time.
Help
If you have any problems or queries, please email heddhelp@prospects.ac.uk