International Professional Engineers Agreement - How to Apply

Application Process for Organisations wishing to apply for membership to IPEA

* Individual Engineers wishing to become a Registered International Professional Engineer (IntPE) should contact the signatory organization from the jurisdiction in which they are registered.

 

The process of becoming a Full Member of the IPEA is completed in two stages:

Stage One

Initially, an organisation will apply to become a Provisional Member. Provisional Members are organisations with or in the course of developing registers of professionally qualified engineers in their own economies who intend to apply to be Full Members of the IPEA.

Admission as a Provisional Member, however, does not imply and shall not be used to imply that any part of the organisation's register meets the requirements for Full Membership.

An organisation wishing to be a Provisional Member and must be nominated by two Full Members in writing, and will be accepted only upon a positive vote by at least two-thirds of the Full Members at a General Meeting of the IPEA.

Stage Two

Full Members are organisations responsible for registers of those professionally qualified engineers who have been assessed as eligible for independent practice within their own economy, and whose qualifications are based on academic achievement substantially equivalent to that of a graduate holding an engineering degree accredited by an organisation holding membership of the Washington Accord, and who have been granted interim or full authorization to maintain a section of the International Register of Professional Engineers.

The transfer of a Provisional Member to Full Member will involve mentoring by Full Members to assist in all aspects of the transfer process, but in particular, with the drafting of an Assessment Statement. Provisional Members are required to provide an Assessment Statement that sets out its current procedures and criteria for domestic registration and also its proposed procedures and criteria for admitting individual applicants to its section of the International Register of Professional Engineers.

The Assessment Statement must ensure that the criteria required by the IPEA International Register Co-Ordinating Committee are met. These requirements are as follows:

The Full Members agree to create and maintain a decentralised International Register of Professional Engineers and to grant entry to that Register only to those practitioners who can demonstrate that they have:

• reached an overall level of academic achievement at the point of entry to the register in question which is substantially equivalent to that of a graduate holding an engineering degree accredited by an organisation holding full membership of, and acting in accordance with the terms of, the Washington Accord; and
• been assessed within their own economy as eligible for independent practice; and
• gained a minimum of seven years practical experience since graduation; and
• spent at least two years in responsible charge of significant engineering work; and
• maintained their continuing professional development at a satisfactory level.

Applicants must agree to be bound by the codes of professional conduct established and enforced by each economy within which they are practicing. Such codes normally require that practitioners place the health, safety and welfare of the community above their responsibilities to clients and colleagues, practice only within their fields of competence, and advise their clients if and when additional professional assistance becomes necessary to implement a programme or project.

Applicants must further agree to be held individually accountable for their actions, both through requirements imposed by the licensing or registering authorities in the economies in which they practice and through legal processes. By applying for registration, applicants authorize the Full Member organisations to exchange such personal and other data as may be necessary to ensure that the application of a sanction or penalty in any economy in which an engineer is registered or licensed to practice will be taken into account in deciding upon their continued designation and will be appropriately recorded in the Register.

The granting of interim authorization to develop and maintain a section of the International Register of Professional Engineers requires the positive vote of at least two thirds of the Full Members voting at a General Meeting of the IPEA International Coordinating Committee, following a comprehensive examination of the proposed procedures and criteria.