The National Council of Architecture Registration Boards (NCARB) has joined leadership from the Architects Accreditation Council of Australia (AACA) and the New Zealand Registered Architects Board (NZRAB) to sign a new Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) that eliminates what NCARB calls “unnecessary” barriers making it more difficult for architects from the United States to pursue work Down Under and vice versa. The new MRA goes into effect on November 6, overriding an existing agreement launched in 2017.
Like the MRA signed by NCARB and the United Kingdom–based Architects Registration Board (ARB) early last year, the new agreement will be offered to all 55 of NCARB’s individual U.S. jurisdictions—it is up to them, however, as to whether they move forward in adopting the new MRA. (Currently, more than half of U.S. jurisdictions recognize the existing reciprocity arrangement between the U.S. and Australia and New Zealand; all eight AACA jurisdictions and the entirety of NZRAB are also signatories.)
Specifically, the new MRA includes new, more lenient eligibility criteria for qualified architects seeking reciprocity. It eliminates an existing requirement that architects accrue 6,000 hours of post-licensure/registration experience in their home country; it accepts architects who obtained licensure/registration through various, non-traditional pathways, including those who became NCARB-certified through the Education Alternative and Foreign Architect paths; lastly, it waives the existing requirement that architects pursuing reciprocal licensure be citizens of their home country.
“The new agreement marks a significant step forward in international practice,” said NCARB president Kenneth R. Van Tine in a statement. “By streamlining the reciprocity process, we're empowering architects from different backgrounds to bring their expertise to a global market while maintaining the high standards required for competent practice in order to protect the public.”
NZRAB board chair Gina Jones added that the updated arrangement “benefits New Zealanders to travel and work internationally, and New Zealand benefits by people from other countries bringing their knowledge, insights, and learnings to our country.”
