Fellows of the Business Continuity Institute are entitled to use the designation FBCI. Applicants must be senior business continuity practitioners with at least 5 years full time experience and demonstrate a thorough knowledge of ALL BCI Certification Standards.

Applicants for Fellowship need to complete a general application form and a professional application form which is scored assessed.Once forms have been scored assessed, applicants will be invited for Structured Interview if they are considered to have the necessary experience.

The Structured Interview Panel will consist of established Fellows of the Institute who will have copies of the output from the scored assessment to assist in their questioning of the applicant and subsequent decision making.

Throughout the interview, the Interview Panel will be looking for effective articulation, logical and analytical skills, imaginative and creative thought and professional knowledge.

The interview, which is recorded, takes approximately 45 minutes and is designed to explore the following areas:

The experience of the applicant and his/her significant contribution to the business continuity profession. This will also entail looking at documentary evidence in support of the applicant's experience.

The applicant’s understanding of the 10 BCI Certification Standards. The panel will be looking for a thorough knowledge of the Standards and evidence of their application by the applicant.

Innovation in the way that business continuity management is applied and the applicant’s beliefs on future directions for the discipline.

Significant Contribution is the most important area of the interview. The Panel will be looking for evidence of the activities undertaken by the applicant which have raised the understanding and awareness of business continuity management outside of the applicant’s normal day to day role.

Examples of significant contribution are:
Published articles and books, conference presentations, development and delivery of training course materials, development of new processes for business continuity management, activities to support the development of the Business Continuity Institute, etc.

Applicants will be required to bring to the Structured Interview, wherever possible, documentary evidence in support of their contribution to the business continuity domain. The number of items presented to the Panel should be adequate to reasonably support the applicant, without being excessive. For those documents that cannot be produced as evidence, because they are confidential to the employer for instance, written confirmation by a senior manager of the employer of their existence, authorship and usefulness will be required.

Other examples of documentary evidence are: books, articles, papers, manuals, reports, written testimonials from clients or employers, workshop or seminar workbooks produced by the applicant. Conference programmes listing the applicant as a speaker, quotations from the applicant used by authors in relevant articles, relevant software developed by the applicant and certificates of other relevant qualifications, are further examples.

Items written by more than one person are acceptable provided the applicant contributed a significant portion and that fact is stated along with the names of the other authors.

Ghosted items are acceptable where the people under whose names they appear, or the applicant's employer, if appropriate, give evidence of authorship by the applicant.

Magazine and newspaper items should give the name and date of the publication.

Following the interview the panel will review the evidence and will normally be able to give the results to the candidate immediately. If Fellowship is not recommended and the applicant is not already a Member, then he/she may be offered Membership. The grade awarded will subsequently be confirmed by the Institute in writing.

To join as a Fellow download the following document containing instructions and all necessary forms:

PDF version of application form
Microsoft Word version of application form