What is iSAQB?

Behind every CPSA certification stand three separate roles: the iSAQB defines the curricula, accredited providers deliver the training, and independent certification bodies conduct the exams. This division of labour is the core of the system and the reason the certificate is vendor-neutral and internationally comparable. Who carries the iSAQB, how a curriculum is written and how you recognise official offers: that is what this article is about.

iSAQB at a glance: the essential facts

The iSAQB is a non-profit association seated in Ludwigshafen am Rhein, Germany. It owns the CPSA programme used worldwide to train and certify software architects.

Members, board and working groups: who carries the iSAQB

The association is carried by its more than 190 members: companies and individuals from the software architecture community, from consultancies to trainers to educational institutions. The members elect the board and contribute to the curricula, the glossary and the examination rules through working groups.

The current board consists of Dr. Guido Gryczan as chair, Kim Nena Duggen as second chair, and Mischa Soujon as deputy chair and treasurer (as of September 2026). For day-to-day operations, the association founded iSAQB GmbH in 2018 as a wholly owned subsidiary.

Curators: every curriculum has a name attached

Every module in the CPSA programme has a curator: a subject-matter expert who owns the curriculum and develops it further. Some of these names have shaped the software architecture literature for decades, and some of them teach at tecnovy:

• Dr. Gernot Starke, founding member of the iSAQB, curator of the ADOC module and co-founder of arc42
• Dr. Peter Hruschka, founding member of both iSAQB and IREB
• Dr. Michael Sperber, curator of the FUNAR and DSL modules and member of the iSAQB Strategy Council
• Dr. Carola Lilienthal, curator of the DDD module

How a curriculum is written and kept current

The CPSA curricula are public and maintained as open source on GitHub. Change proposals run through public issue tracking, and larger revisions appear in a release cycle of roughly two years. The Foundation curriculum currently stands at version 2025.1 and is available in several languages (as of September 2026).

When a curriculum changes, the accredited providers update their training material accordingly. That keeps the content comparable across providers, wherever you take the course.

What the iSAQB does, and what it deliberately does not

The iSAQB concentrates on three tasks: defining the curricula, accrediting providers and examination bodies, and safeguarding quality. Training and examination are deliberately left to others.

This formal and organisational separation is no accident, it is the foundation of the system: whoever teaches you does not decide whether you pass. The iSAQB itself calls the separation of training and examination the basis for maximum quality and transparency of the CPSA certifications. How the exam works in detail is covered in our post answering the most common iSAQB certification questions.

How to recognise an official iSAQB offer

Four things you can verify yourself in a few minutes:

1. The provider is listed in the official directory of accredited training providers.
2. The course names the module and the curriculum version it teaches, for example CPSA-F on Foundation curriculum 2025.1.
3. Training provider and examination body are two different organisations. The exam body appears in the official list of certification bodies.
4. Course fee and exam fee are itemised separately, because they go to two different organisations.

From 2001 to today: the history of the iSAQB

The iSAQB grew out of a German professional initiative and has become the international standard-setter for software architecture education within roughly two decades.

iSAQB, IREB, ISTQB and TOGAF: who is responsible for what

Four names that get mixed up all the time. They stand for different disciplines and, in one case, for an entirely different kind of thing:

The iSAQB standardises education in software architecture, meaning the design, documentation and evaluation of individual software systems.

The IREB (International Requirements Engineering Board) does the same for requirements engineering, the discipline of analysing requirements. Peter Hruschka co-founded both bodies.

The ISTQB (International Software Testing Qualifications Board) standardises education in software testing.

TOGAF is not a board at all, but an Open Group framework for enterprise architecture, the level of entire IT landscapes rather than individual systems. For the full comparison, read our post TOGAF vs iSAQB.

Commonly confused: iSAQB, CPSA, CPSA-F and the certificate

Even within the system, the terms often blur. The short version:

iSAQB is the organisation. It writes the curricula and accredits, but examines no one and issues no certificates.

CPSA stands for Certified Professional for Software Architecture and is the certification programme owned by the iSAQB.

CPSA-F and CPSA-A are levels within that programme, Foundation as the entry point and Advanced for specialisation; for the Expert Level (CPSA-E), the examination criteria have been published. How the path to the Advanced Level works in detail is covered in our CPSA-A certification guide.

The CPSA certificate is not issued by the iSAQB but by the independent certification body where you sit the exam.

Sources and official documents

Every fact in this article comes from the iSAQB's official sources. Figures that change over time, such as member and certification counts, are marked with their date, last checked in September 2026.

• isaqb.org, the official website covering the association, its bodies and its members
• github.com/isaqb-org, the curricula as open source with public issue tracking
• Foundation curriculum, current version 2025.1
• Directory of accredited training providers
• List of official certification bodies

Whether certification under this system makes sense for you personally depends on your role and your goals. For an honest assessment, read our post Is iSAQB certification necessary?

Certification board

iSAQB® CPSA Course and Certifications

See trainings