The governance provisions of AIRS-J/1 are normative and constrain AIR APAC, not the candidate. The complete rubric is public and versioned. Fourteen named people sit on the Review Board, unpaid, and review every major version before release. The Standard also names an External Academic Reviewer, Prof. Mudiarasan Kuppusamy of UNITAR International University. The owner of AIR APAC decides and holds a veto, and each board member's dissent from a released version is recorded in the version history. The board last reviewed v2.0 on 3 October 2026; no dissent was recorded.
Governance and independence
In short:
Clauses 4.1 to 4.9 of AIRS-J/1, word for word, including the issuing body's declared interests in section 4.9. These are commitments the organisation is bound by, not aspirations.
4.1 Published rubric. The complete rubric is public and versioned. AIR APAC applies no undisclosed criterion, weighting, adjustment or override. Any criterion not in this document, or in the instrument specification it incorporates (Annex F), does not exist.
4.2 Review board. The review board is drawn from AIR APAC's standing councils, published at airapac.org/about (Section 17). It reviews every major version before release and advises on the evidence programme (Annex A). The owner of AIR APAC decides, and holds a veto over the board's recommendations. Each board member's dissent from a released version is recorded in the version history.
4.3 Training and certification. Training is how most candidates meet this Standard: AIR APAC, AIR Academy and certified trainers deliver it, and the official instrument offers practice. Certification outcomes are decided by the rules in Section 12 alone, never by what a candidate or employer bought. The owner of AIR APAC takes no part in any individual result. A candidate may present for assessment without prior training. Practice content and certifying content are kept apart (Section 9.3).
4.4 No outcome-contingent fees. No assessor, delivery partner, trainer or licensee is paid on a basis that varies with candidate outcomes. Partner fees are per participant or per session. No trainer, delivery partner or licensee receives a fee or referral payment that varies with whether a participant presents for, or obtains, certification.
4.5 No customer-authored criteria. Delivery partners and licensed trainers may not vary, extend, reweight or supplement the dimensions, anchors, thresholds or decision rules in this Standard. Contextual localisation of scenario content is permitted under Section 8.5; localisation of criteria is not.
4.6 Assessor independence. Where a human assessor scores or confirms an observation, no individual may act as sole assessor for a candidate they have personally trained within the preceding twelve months, nor for a candidate within their own reporting line, nor where they hold a financial interest in the outcome. Assessors declare conflicts before each assessment; declarations are retained.
4.7 Public register. Every valid certification is recorded in a verifiable register (Section 14).
4.8 Findings act on the Standard. Where reliability, fairness or validity monitoring shows a claim needs strengthening, AIR APAC acts on it in the next release: it fixes the instrument, the rule or the anchor, and the validation report records what changed.
4.9 Declared interests of the issuing body. The owner of AIR APAC Pte. Ltd. also owns Exeter Labs. StepSim is an AIR APAC initiative, built and operated by Exeter Labs, and is the official instrument of this Standard (Section 16.3). Exeter Labs also holds the intellectual property in, builds and operates the other tools AIR APAC uses, under contract with AIR APAC. AIR Academy, AIR APAC's learning division, delivers the StepSim facilitator programme under a written arrangement with Exeter Labs. AIR APAC certifies the facilitators who complete it, under Section 20.6; Exeter Labs builds the software, licenses certified facilitators to run it, and issues no certification. Any further arrangement between the two is entered here before it takes effect.
Governance roster
| Role | Holder |
|---|---|
| Standard owner | AIR APAC Pte. Ltd. (UEN 202600913G) |
| External academic reviewer | Prof. Mudiarasan Kuppusamy, UNITAR International University |
| Review board | Drawn from AIR APAC's standing councils, published at airapac.org/about. The owner of AIR APAC holds the veto (Section 4.2). |
| Appeals reviewer | A review board member, or an authorised assessor under §11.6, not involved in the original decision or delivery, and not employed by or paid through Exeter Labs |
17.1 The board's membership is the councils' published membership. A member with an interest in a matter before the board declares it and does not advise on it.
The fourteen members of the Review Board are named on the People page, with their roles. Board membership is not an endorsement of the Standard or of any instrument. Roles still to be filled: the Appeals Reviewer, named from the Review Board by 30 October 2026; the person who decides access-support requests under Section 8.9; and the fairness monitor, appointed from the first fairness summary in 2027.
Appeals, complaints and findings
A candidate may appeal a certification-status decision, an accommodation decision, or a suspension within 30 days. The appeals reviewer was not involved in the original decision or delivery. You receive the outcome and the reasons in writing. The first stage of an appeal is free.
Distinct from an appeal: service quality, conduct, a delivery partner, an approved instrument, AIR APAC, or a certified person. A published complaints procedure covers intake, acknowledgement, independent investigation, response times, escalation and aggregate reporting.
Anyone may submit a correction, an objection to a requirement, or evidence that contradicts a claim in the Standard. Submissions are logged. A defect in a normative requirement is put to the review board, and the outcome is recorded with the next version.
Work with AIR APAC