Sometimes results don’t go the way we want them to, but when this is through no fault of your own, it may be appropriate to ask for those results to be reviewed.
The full regulations on appeals, which can be found here, are quite complex, so we have summarised them below for you.
An academic appeal formally requests that a result is re-examined for one of three reasons:
Confirmed decisions by a board of examiners or the examiners of higher degrees can be appealed, as well as decisions by either a University committee or staff member regarding academic progress.
If you are going through any other formal University procedure dealing with the same, or related, issues, these will have to be completed before you can appeal.
Remember that academic judgement – which is defined as “the professional and scholarly knowledge” which academic staff draw upon to make academic decisions – cannot be appealed. What this means in practice is that you cannot appeal a precise mark, but rather an incorrect or incomplete procedure which led to the result. A mark will only be changed if there was a clear error in either recording or processing it.
Informal stage: Your department should be contacted to see if it is possible to resolve the issue informally before progressing to a formal appeal
Firstly, you need to make sure you have discussed the matter informally with your department as far as possible, and only after this proceed to appeal.
At this point, make sure that it has been less than 21 days since you were informed of the result you wish to appeal – appeals must be made within this time and extensions to that deadline will only be granted in exceptional circumstances.
Undergraduates
An appeal must be submitted using the new Faculty Student Appeals App which can be found here. If you no longer have an active Durham University account, for example, if you have been withdrawn from the University, you will be unable to access the Faculty Student Appeals App. Please contact your Faculty Office, stating your full name and student ID number, to request an alternate submission method. (See Faculty Academic Appeals - Durham University for Faculty Appeal contact emails.)
Postgraduates
The Postgraduate Faculty Appeal form must be completed, which can be downloaded from here and then sent by email, with any supporting evidence attached to student.appeals@durham.ac.uk
At this stage, you could contact the SU advice centre using our enquiries form here.
Possible outcomes at Faculty level are:
After investigation at Faculty level has concluded, you may wish to continue appealing if the Faculty finds no grounds for appeal. You need to either have evidence that the procedure was applied incorrectly at Faculty level, or that there is substantial new information which would impact the case that you were either not aware of or were unable to tell the Faculty appeal about, in order for your appeal to SAAC to be valid.
Please note that at SAAC level, a decision being ‘unreasonable’ is no longer grounds for an appeal.
An appeal at Senate stage must be submitted to the Academic Quality Service (AQS). The form to file a senate level appeal can be found here.
On this form, you need to:
SAAC appeals are submitted to Academic Quality Services (student.appeals@durham.ac.uk) and need to be submitted within 14 days of the outcome of your Faculty appeal.
Your case will be reviewed by an Academic Appeal Review Panel (AARP) within 28 days and you will be notified of the outcome in writing, normally within 10 days of the panel.
The AARP may dismiss the appeal or uphold the appeal and refer the case back to the appropriate party, for example the Board of Examiners.
Exceptionally a case will be referred to a full meeting of SAAC, and the SAAC meeting will usually include the head of your department, the head of your college, and the chair of the relevant board of examiners (or a supervisor in the case of some Postgraduates). You will be asked to present your own case in person, though in some circumstances you may be able to nominate a proxy to attend in your place.
Judgments are normally reached within 10 days of the meeting, at which point SAAC can grant a concession, return the decision to the board of examiners for review, or they may find no grounds for appeal and disallow it. When one of these decisions is come to, a ‘Completion of Procedures’ letter will be issued. At this point, you may appeal to the Office of the Independent Adjudicator (OIAHE), about which more information can be found below.
The appeals process can be a daunting one, and often involves a number of individuals from across the University at different stages, so it’s not unusual for you to want to seek help at this point. There are a number of places you can find help, including:
An appeal at Senate stage must be submitted to the Academic Quality Service (AQS). The form to file a senate level appeal can be found here
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Page last reviewed: 15/07/2025