Agreements of Cooperation Procedures

Overview

An Agreement of Cooperation (AOC) is for academic units that wish to collaborate with an international university partner on activities that do not involve the following:

  • the commitment of university resources, or
  • binding contract provisions for the purposes of protecting or utilizing intellectual property.

The AOC proposal form collects all the information needed by International Affairs to initiate such an agreement. This process ensures the following:

  • the agreement terms align with KU policy
  • all relevant campus offices have been consulted.

Please follow this process when initiating new Agreements of Cooperation to ensure appropriate KU support for your unit’s planned activity.

Helpful links

Step One: Planning

  1. Review the Directory of International Agreements to determine whether an AOC or other agreements with the proposed international partner are already in place.
  2. Review Things to consider before proposing an international partnership. 
  3. Discuss your plans with your department chair, dean or other unit leadership to learn about any applicable internal department, college or school policies for international collaborations and to determine support for the initiative.

Step Two: Submit Proposal

  1. Submit an Agreement of Cooperation proposal form.
    • In completing the form, you agree to be the Agreement Champion for this partnership, which means you are willing to serve as a liaison between International Affairs and the prospective partner for the duration of the agreement (typically five years).
    • Include as attachments any information that will assist International Affairs with the proposal review, including agreement templates shared by the partner.
    • International Affairs strongly prefers the use of KU agreement templates and the use of English as the controlling language.
    • For copies of KU templates, contact International Affairs at intl-agreement@ku.edu.
  2. In cases where English is not the controlling language, the unit initiating the agreement will be responsible for procuring a certified translation and back-translation and covering any associated costs. KU has a translation firm on retainer for the performance of this task.

Step Three: Finalize the AOC

  1. International Affairs will review the proposal and respond within 10 business days.
    • KUIA staff will send an agreement draft to the Agreement Champion that can be shared with the prospective partner university.
    • If the partner proposes edits to KU’s templates, KUIA will coordinate General Counsel review and approval.
    • Note: These negotiations will add to the overall processing time.
  2. Once a final draft has been approved, the institutional authorities named in the agreement will sign the agreement.
    • Note: Scanned copies of original signatures in a PDF document may be considered originals. KU will also accept digital signatures from the partner university, but KU signatories will only provide wet-ink signatures or scans thereof.
  3. One copy of the fully executed document remains with the partner institution; one copy should be submitted to KUIA for institutional record-keeping.