ABSTRACT
Movement of construction students, educators and practicing professionals around the world has increased over the past decades. This desire to learn and/or practice in other countries has become a challenge to many because of differing minimal educational and professional qualifications. When one’s educational and/or professional qualifications are not recognized as equivalent to those in one’s native country, it serves as a barrier for further education, not to mention the inability to work with professionals of other countries in the solution of common problems of the construction industry.
In 1995, representatives from 11 educational and professional qualification awarding bodies in 10 countries met at the headquarters of the Chartered Institute of Building in Ascot, UK to begin discussions on how to establish guidelines to insure equivalency of qualifications among the represented nations. During its third meeting in Washington, DC, representatives from the original qualifying bodies plus three additional ones, formed the International Association for the Professional Management of Construction (IAPMC). At the same meeting the Delegates adopted a set of Articles of Association and elected its first Officers.
The purpose of the IAPMC is to foster, for the public benefit, the international discipline of construction, by promoting, establishing, mutually recognizing, encouraging, and thereby helping to facilitate the movement of such professionals worldwide. The work of the body will take place through a series of committees. Creating an “international passport” to learn and practice around the world will enhance the ability among construction students, educators and practicing professionals for multi-cultural partnerships on projects of all types and sizes and interdisciplinary research and educational activities, all for the betterment of the worldwide construction community.
