Award Documents and Academic Verifications

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.

Certificate paper  Transcript paper

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 or for any standard postage (as a standard we send award documents through Royal Mail. Any requests to use an alternative service may incur a fee).

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).  

You can request replacement certificates and transcripts through our online store.

You will find details of costs and terms and conditions on the order page. 

We aim to process requests within five working days, however during busy times (such as during graduation week) this may take a little longer.

You can request a letter of verification which acts as proof of your award for free. The letter will be sent to you via email and will include information such as your award data and study dates. For details about your modules you'll need a replacement transcript.

We aim to process requests within five working days, however at peak times this might take a little longer.

Request a Letter of Verification

Some companies, educational institutions or government authorities may require you to supply certified award documents.

If you have been asked for a certified copy of your award documentation you can submit a request to academicverifications@port.ac.uk.

You will need to include 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 request.  

We aim to process requests within five working days, however, at peak times, this might take a little longer. This is a free service.

World Education Services (WES) offer a credential evaluation service and you can find more information about the required documents here. Please send scanned copies of the original documents required by WES to academicverifications@port.ac.uk 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.

Visit the Foreign and Commonwealth Office website

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