State enterprise «National Institute for Development Infrastructure»
en UA

CONSULTING ENGINEERS

Director of the State Enterprise “National Institute for Development Infrastructure” Artem Bezuglyi participated in the roundtable discussion “Certification of Consulting Engineers in Ukraine in the European Context: Challenges and Solutions”, organized by the Business Ombudsman Council.

For the SE “NIDI”, this topic has a distinctly practical dimension. The enterprise operates a Personnel Certification Body accredited by the National Accreditation Agency of Ukraine, one of whose areas of activity is the certification of consulting engineers in the construction sector.

During the discussion, Artem Bezuglyi presented his position on key issues that currently require attention and further professional dialogue.

Barriers to entry into the profession. It is important to continue the professional discussion on the existing qualification requirements and their justification. High professional standards should be maintained; however, the key criterion should be the actual competence of the consulting engineer rather than the number of certificates obtained in other professional fields.

Unified and transparent rules for the training and certification of consulting engineers. It would be advisable to establish common baseline requirements for consulting engineer training programmes, taking into account modern international practices in engineering consultancy and project management. In the certification process, greater use should be made of digital tools to ensure transparency, objectivity of assessment, and the possibility of auditing results.

Clear division of responsibilities. It is necessary to define more clearly the powers and responsibilities of both the client and the consulting engineer. A consulting engineer should strengthen the client’s professional capacity rather than duplicate the client’s functions.

Reasonable service fees. Currently, Ukrainian cost estimation standards provide percentage-based indicators for determining the cost of consulting engineer services that are not differentiated according to the value of construction works. This approach does not always correspond to the actual workload involved: as construction costs increase, the workload of the consulting engineer does not necessarily increase proportionally. Therefore, a more differentiated approach is needed, taking into account the scale and complexity of the project, project duration, scope of responsibilities, risks, and liability.

Mutual recognition of qualifications. In the context of European integration, it is important to establish a clear mechanism for the mutual recognition of Ukrainian and foreign professional qualifications, as well as for taking international professional certification systems into account, including FIDIC.

The main principle is simple: fewer formal barriers, greater real professional competence.

This is precisely the area around which professional discussion should continue and the regulatory framework governing the engineering consultancy market in Ukraine should be further improved.

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