Requirements - CPD Courses for Professional Engineers

The Engineering Institute of Canada (EIC) serves as a national accreditor of Continuing Education Units (CEUs) for engineering learning activities across Canada. The EIC does not impose mandatory CPD requirements on engineers. Instead, it establishes standards for accrediting professional development activities delivered by approved providers.

EIC-CEU Definition:

One EIC-CEU = 10 hours of participation in a formal continuing education program.
Each CEU is equivalent to 10 Professional Development Hours (PDHs).
CEUs may be issued in decimal increments for shorter activities.

Accreditation Standards:
Learning activities accredited by the EIC must comply with rigorous program standards, including:

Clear learning outcomes developed through a needs assessment.
Qualified instructors responsible for content delivery.
Instructional methods appropriate to stated objectives.
Verification of learning outcomes through testing, demonstrations, or evaluations.
Participant evaluations to measure effectiveness.
Responsible sponsorship and administration of the course.

Accredited Providers:
Organizations accredited as EIC Participating Partners may issue EIC-accredited CEUs/PDHs. Accredited providers are required to register issued CEUs/PDHs with the EIC Registry, enabling professionals to securely maintain a national transcript of continuing education achievements.

EIC’s Continuing Education Accreditation Program is endorsed by Engineers Canada, the Association of Consulting Engineering Companies – Canada, and the Canadian Academy of Engineering.

LearnFormula is an EIC Participating Partner (Quality CEU Provider) authorized to issue EIC-accredited CEUs and PDHs. For full information, please visit: https://eic-ici.ca/eic_ceu-standards/

Professional Members are required to complete 240 mandatory CPDs every 3 years. A maximum of 30 CPD can be claimed for Formal learning per year. All CPDs should be technical in nature under the Formal Activity. You are required to indicate only the number of CPDs you claimed for your professional development activities in the 12 months prior to your membership (registration) renewal date.

All regulated members of the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta (ASET) are required to complete a minimum of two Continuing Professional Development (CPD) activities each year. The CPD year runs from January 1 to December 31.

Who Must Comply:

Certified Technicians (C.Tech.)
Certified Technologists (C.E.T.)
Registered Engineering Technologists (R.E.T.)
Professional Technologists (P.Tech.(Eng.))

The following groups are exempt: retired members, students, and Technicians- or Technologists-in-Training (T.T.) registrants.

Program Requirements:
Registrants must complete at least two CPD activities from two different professional development categories. The categories are:

Formal Activities – Seminars (more than 4 hours), structured courses, or technical training programs
Informal Activities – Workshops (less than 4 hours), on-the-job training, reading technical journals, or learning a technical application
Peer and Professional Interaction – Mentoring, demonstrating technical applications to colleagues, or participating in professional networks
Contributions to the Profession or Community – Presenting research, volunteering, or writing technical articles and papers

Definition of CPD:
Any activity that enhances professional competence qualifies as CPD if it meets at least one of the following:

Relates to professional needs
Supports long-term career goals
Is of interest to an employer
Relates to professional ethics or public safety
Advances the profession
Improves professional soft skills
Contributes to being a better practitioner

Monitoring and Recordkeeping:

CPD must be logged annually through the ASET online CPD log.
ASET conducts random annual audits of members. Non-compliant members may be required to provide supporting documentation.
Failure to comply may result in a practice review and/or removal from the ASET register.

LearnFormula is not affiliated with the Association of Science and Engineering Technology Professionals of Alberta. For full information, please visit: https://aset.ab.ca/common/Uploaded%20files/ASET/Regulatory%20Compliance/2025-CPD-Handbook.pdf

Professionals are required to complete 60 CE Hours in any of the Areas of Learning, at the Registrant’s discretion, or 20 hours a year on average; and Designated Structural Engineers (i.e., registrants with the specialty Struct.Eng. designation) must complete an additional 60 CE Hours directly related to their structural engineering area(s) of practice, for a total of 120 CE Hours in every 3-year period.

Areas of learning defined in the new CE Program include regulatory, ethical, technical, and communications and leadership. Practising registrants must complete the Regulatory Learning Module and at least 1 hour of ethical learning each year. Areas of learning defined in the new CE Program include: Technical Learning, Ethical Learning, Regulatory Learning, Communications and Leadership Learning.

You must maintain a total of at least 240 PDHs over three years. The following are the six categories in which you may earn credit for professional development: • Professional Practice • Formal Activity • Informal Activity • Participation • Presentations • Contributions to Knowledge

Formal Activity

Max credit hours: 90 per 3-year period

1 hour of course attendance = 1 credit hour

1 course offering Continuing Education units = 10 credit hours

Formal activities are often for academic credit and may include an evaluation. If there is no evaluation, you may claim credit for activities that are longer than a half day. They include:

Professional development programs, courses and seminars
Courses offered by universities, technical institutes, colleges, suppliers, employers or technical societies
Courses offered in traditional classroom settings or by correspondence, video or online

Professional members must report at least 30 PDHs per year which must include a minimum of 2 PDHs under the Ethical Practice Learning category and 1 PDH under the Regulatory Learning category.

All PEGNL license holders are required to report thirty (30) hours of professional development (PD) annually through PEGNL’s on-line reporting system available at the PEGNL's Member Portal. The program requires a minimum of two (2) professional development hours in the category of Ethical Practice and one (1) in the Regulatory Learning category.

Your program should be designed to address any required knowledge and skills maintenance, or improvement, as well as acquisition of new abilities that contribute to your personal and professional growth in accordance with your career goals.

The program defines six (6) activity categories and indicates the minimum levels of effort required to meet the program recommendations in each category. These required levels of effort are defined by units referred to as Professional Development Hours (PDH’s). Accumulation of a total of 240 PDH’s is recommended over a three-year period.

A maximum of 30 PDHS each year can be earned in the category Formal Activity.

The Association requires that Professional Engineers and Limited Engineering Licencees accumulate a minimum of thirty (30) PDHs (professional development hours) per year. This must be submitted on or before December 31st of each year using the online Member Portal. The program allows CPD to be completed in four areas of learning: Ethical Practice All registrants are required to complete and claim a minimum of 2 PDHs per year in Ethical Practice Learning. Regulatory All registrants are required to complete and claim a minimum of 1 PDH per year in Regulatory Learning. Technical Activities in this category must be related to advancing a registrant’s technical and professional knowledge and skills. Communication and Leadership Communication and leadership learning is related to advancing a registrant’s professional abilities including leadership, communication, team-building, management and other nontechnical knowledge and skills.

The number of CPD hours you must complete depends on the number of target CPD hours assigned to you following your practice evaluation. The maximum target is 30 hours per year but you can report more CPD hours than your target. In 2024, CPD admissibility criteria will be expanded to include supplementary learning (such as project management, business management, communications, health and safety, etc.) that supports core engineering practice activities. Note: Eighty per cent of your required CPD hours must come from core engineering learning.

You must accumulate an average of 80 PDHs per year, over a three-year period, with a minimum of 60 PDHs in any year. Members with Part-Time PD Status must accumulate a minimum of 40 PDHs per year of Part-Time PD Status. A maximum of 30 PDHS each year can be earned in the category Formal Activity in a year.

The CPD Program runs on the calendar cycle from January 1 to December 31. Within this period, members are required to: • Obtain a minimum of 30 CPD credits, which must include a minimum of 12 CPD credits in verifiable activity categories; • Obtain credits in at least 2 of the five activity categories; • Obtain at least one cumulative hour of verifiable ethics activity; • Declare or update an area (scope/field) of practice description online; • Maintain a detailed record of completed activities and the number of credits earned; and • Report their CPD information online to APEGS by January 31st of the following year. .

Professional Development for Engineers

Requirements, Accreditations & Approvals

The Engineering Institute of Canada

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