Frequently asked questions

The Alliance of Development Practitioners (ADP) is an independent, non-commercial professional body. We develop open standards, certify practitioners, and accredit trainers across the international development sector. ADP is registered in Belgium and governed by a board of practitioners.

ADP develops the standards and accredits trainers. certN administers the examinations and assesses candidates. The two organisations are separate, which keeps the body owning the standard at arm’s length from the body running the exam.

Yes. The Social Innovation Manual is published under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. You can read, download, share, adapt, and use it commercially. The only requirement is crediting ADP as the source.

Yes — that’s why it’s open-licensed. You can use, adapt, and integrate the Manual into your courses, workshops, classroom teaching, or internal training, with attribution to ADP. If you want to prepare candidates for the official SIPC exam, you’ll need to be accredited as a trainer.

APA: Alliance of Development Practitioners. (2026). The Social Innovation Manual (1st ed.). https://adp-international.org/social-innovation/manual/

All available languages are listed on the Manual download page. If you’d like to add a language, you can volunteer to translate.

Yes. The Provide Feedback page is the channel. Significant suggestions are referred to the working group preparing the next edition. Contributors are credited (with an opt-out available).

SIPC stands for Social Innovation Practitioner Certification — a competence-based credential for people designing and delivering social innovation in NGOs, public-sector teams, social enterprises, CSR, consulting, and adjacent fields. See the certification page for full details.

SIPC is competence-based and grounded in an open standard. Unlike credentials that test recall against a closed body of knowledge, SIPC uses applied scenarios with open-book access to the Manual. Compared to PMP, MEAL DPro, or similar credentials, SIPC is specifically about social innovation methodology — not project management generally.

The exam is booked through certN directly. Pricing is set by certN and published on their site. See the certification page for the booking link.

Yes. You can refer to the Social Innovation Manual during the exam — about 80% of the questions are application-based scenarios, so judgement matters more than recall.

No. Lifetime validity, no renewal fees, no continuing-education requirement.

Yes — there’s no waiting period. Each attempt requires a new booking and fee through certN, and you can rebook as soon as you’re ready.

No. The exam has no formal training prerequisite. You can self-study with the Manual or train with an accredited trainer — both lead to the same exam.

Search the trainer directory — filter by country, language, and training format (face-to-face, digital classroom, or self-paced).

Accredited trainers typically deliver around 25 hours of training, spread across a few weeks. Self-study takes 20 to 40 hours depending on prior experience. Trainers set their own fees — most publish them on their profile or their own site.

Anyone can teach the Social Innovation framework freely under its CC BY 4.0 license — accreditation is only required if you want to prepare candidates for the official SIPC exam, list in the directory, and use the ADP-accredited mark. The full process is on the accreditation page.

Both. Individuals and training organisations can both apply. Organisations may have multiple accredited trainers under their umbrella.