In all of this, I want to salute Standards Norway for putting up money when ours was gone; and in particular Thomas Oscar-Andersen for his professional and hard work on our behalf!

The other three standards now have a foundation to rest on: the Delivery standard, the Certification standard and the Training/course standard. While the first three are for personnel certifications, the latter is a standard for organisations with conditions such as faculty, procedures, audits, examiners, and documentation for such courses.

The Competencies standard requires 30 ects credits or 1/2 year full-time study including self-study – which brings it in line with or integrated into a basic bachelor course or vocational training.

We were asked to provide examples of evidence-based literature as an appendix to Competencies. The reading lists came from coaching schools and organisations, mainly textbooks; these can be used for independent study and preparation for certification.

International and ISO

The English version of the standards will have value outside of Norway as a neutral standard. But the whole set of standards has been supported by ICF Global and EMCC Global, which makes it likely that there is enough interest to continue towards a global standard with ISO.

We have achieved something that in 2021 looked like doomed to failure for a second time – and regarded by many as impossible!