Does Institutional Responsibility Travel with the Degree? Governance, Academic Work and Accountability in UK Transnational Education

This study examines whether institutional responsibility travels with the degree in UK transnational education (TNE). Drawing on institutional and stakeholder theory, it analyses eight regulatory, statutory, quality-assurance, policy and sector documents from 2022–2026, benchmarked, where possible, against protections for the same providers’ academics in England. The findings reveal a TNE governance gap: responsibility for academic standards, award credibility and student protection is explicitly portable across borders, whereas responsibility for the conditions of academic work is discretionary, dispersed or territorially bounded. The clearest instance is academic freedom, a staff-facing statutory protection whose reach the regulator expressly confines to activities in England. Staff are framed instrumentally as quality infrastructure, personnel risks are recognised but not binding, and contextualisation lacks a workforce anchor. The study proposes the Responsible Institutional Portability (RIN) Model, separating host-country legal compliance, legitimately contextualised practice and portable institutional principles and assigning primary responsibility and assurance mechanisms to each layer.