Comment: Mutual recognition08 January 2024

Recently there have been some announcements by the Engineering Council covering the introduction of bilateral engineering competency initiatives, the most recent being with the Netherlands.

These agreements refer to processes by which registration authorities take into account an applicant’s prior registration with another authority (overseas). In doing so, they allow for exemption of some or all of each partner’s normal assessment and approval processes. These bilateral agreements may exist between national organisations.

Multi-party international agreements can also exist as mutual recognition agreements. The subtle differences being that mutual exemption agreements (MEA) are most likely to grant exemption from part of an assessment process, while mutual recognition agreements (MRA) can provide direct access to the agreed registration (or membership) of the partner organization without further assessment.

These types of agreements have the benefit of greatly assisting the ease of mobility and recognition of registered and certified engineers when working overseas. In addition, such agreements are also great levellers in establishing international engineering qualifications and competencies.

The SOE is working with the Society of the Environment to establish a mutual recognition agreement with the American Academy of Environmental Engineers and Scientists (AAEES) to establish equivalences between its professional engineer (PE) and board certified engineer (BCEE) with our registered environmental practitioner (REnvP) and chartered environmentalist (CEnv) grades. Once completed, our ambitions are to repeat this with the Engineering Council for incorporated engineer (IEng) and chartered engineer (CEng). Any applicant would have to apply for membership of their receiving in country body prior to being awarded the appropriate qualification, giving us an opportunity to increase membership.

Steve Burnage, chair, Environmental Engineers

Related Companies
Engineering Council
SOE

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