One team, from opportunity to approval.
We work on a small number of engagements at a time, and we run the whole file. Your office reviews and signs; we do the identification, the drafting, the translation and the follow-up.
Market and opportunity assessment — where your existing programmes are currently being approved, which disciplines are being prioritised, and what a realistic first programme looks like.
Partner identification — qualified institutions matched to your discipline and assessed against their own record, not a list of introductions.
Programme and curriculum design — curriculum mapping, credit articulation and faculty commitment scoped against the host regulator’s requirements before anything is drafted.
Application and approval — the full regulatory file prepared in both languages, submitted, and carried through the questions that follow it.
Agreements — terms, revenue arrangements, faculty obligations and exit provisions settled before the relationship depends on them.
Launch support — first intake, entry standards and, where the model calls for it, the transfer of students to your campus.
How an engagement runs
Timelines below are indicative and vary by province, discipline and filing round. You get a dated plan at scoping, before anything is signed.
Phase one — assessment, weeks 1 to 4. Which of your existing programmes China is currently approving, in which provinces, and what a realistic first programme looks like. Ends with a written recommendation you can take to your provost.
Phase two — partner identification, weeks 4 to 12. A shortlist of qualified Chinese universities assessed against their own approval record, then introductions, visits where useful, and a written expression of mutual commitment before anything is filed.
Phase three — programme design, weeks 8 to 20. Curriculum mapping, credit articulation, faculty allocation and the Four One-Thirds Rule, agreed with your academic office.
Phase four — agreement, weeks 16 to 24. Terms, tuition and revenue arrangements, faculty obligations, quality assurance, and exit provisions.
Phase five — application and approval, weeks 20 to 40. The full file in Chinese and English, submitted first to the provincial education department and then to the Ministry of Education, with responses to every query raised.
Phase six — launch, the following intake cycle. Recruitment by the Chinese partner against agreed entry standards, first intake, and where the model requires it, the transfer of students to your campus.
What we commit to
Advisory, not recruitment. We are not a student recruitment agency and take no commission per student enrolled. Our fees are tied to the programme, not to headcount.
Compliance before speed. An application built to be approved rather than to be filed quickly. Every file is reviewed twice, in both languages, before submission.
Your work stays yours. If an application is refused, the programme design, the curriculum mapping and the partner relationship remain with your institution. We re-file in the next round or take the same work to a second partner.
Fixed scope, agreed early. Deliverables and fees are set at scoping, before an agreement is signed. Engagements can be structured so that little or nothing is payable before approval.
One team on your file. The people who scope your programme are the people who file it. We take on a small number of engagements at a time.
About the firm
Envoy is a two-partner advisory firm. Between us we have spent our careers in university international offices, in recruitment and partnership leadership, and serving on the certification and council bodies that set standards for this sector — on the institution’s side of the table rather than the vendor’s.
We work this way because an approval file is won or lost on detail, and detail does not survive volume. Your office reviews and signs. We do the identification, the drafting, the translation and the follow-up.
Programme models
A transnational programme is described by where the years are spent — how many with the partner institution abroad, how many on your campus. The structure determines your faculty load, your students’ mobility, and how quickly you can have an approval on file.
4+0, undergraduate. Four years delivered with the partner institution; no student mobility required. The largest teaching commitment abroad, and the route to volume.
3+1, undergraduate. Three years abroad, the final year on your campus. A common opening structure — the cohort graduates having lived on your campus.
2+2, undergraduate. Two years abroad, two on your campus. Deepest campus exposure, and the largest visa, housing and student support load.
2+0, graduate. A taught master’s delivered entirely in country.
1+1, graduate. One year abroad, one on your campus. Reaches a completed cohort fastest — two years from first intake.
Most regulators set a minimum share of the curriculum — courses, teaching hours and instructors — that must come from the awarding university. It is the binding constraint on every model above, and we scope your faculty commitment against it before a partner is approached.