How do I submit a Senate Academic Appeal Committee (SAAC) Appeal

Once you have received your Faculty Appeal outcome, the next stage would be to submit a SAAC appeal form if you are not satisfied with the Faculty Appeal outcome. 

To submit an appeal at this level, you must either be able to demonstrate that the Faculty Appeal process was not correctly followed, or present substantial new information that could impact your case—information that you were either previously unaware of or unable to disclose during the Faculty Appeal stage.

If you are appealing on the basis that the Faculty Appeal stage was not correctly followed, please note that appeals that are submitted under this ground will only result in a review of the process followed at the Faculty Appeal stage, not a reconsideration of your original case itself.

If you are appealing on the basis of having new information, then any new evidence relating to circumstances that were already considered at the original Exam Board and/or Faculty stage may not constitute new information if it simply verifies those circumstances that have previously been disclosed. Where new evidence is presented, it must also be accompanied by a sufficient explanation as to why this could not be provided at an earlier stage.

At this level, appealing on the basis of a decision being "unreasonable" is no longer an option. You therefore can't submit a SAAC appeal on the basis that you are unhappy with the Faculty Appeal decision. 

If you do want to go ahead with a SAAC appeal, then you will need to submit the SAAC appeal form within 14 days of the date of the notification of your Faculty Appeal decision; a copy of the form to submit can be found on the University's appeal pages here, and once complete, must be emailed (along with any relevant documents and evidence - you can find more details here as to what evidence you should include) to student.appeals@durham.ac.uk 

Please continue reading our next article here to find out how to write your appeal and what to include...