Founding Associate Member
The Founding Associate Member route is for supporters, serious divers, students, early-stage professionals, and non-professional allies who want to support the IADP and stand behind the wider diving profession.
IADP Update
The IADP has reached a new milestone. With the public platform, membership structure, and first project pages now in place, the organisation is ready to welcome members into its next development phase. The Founding Membership campaign opens a limited window for supporters, serious divers, professionals, and industry stakeholders to join early and become part of the first active membership base.
Over the past development phase, the IADP has focused on strengthening its public structure, clarifying its membership model, preparing its project framework, and creating a stronger foundation for long-term professional representation through IADP V5. That foundation is now ready for the next step: welcoming members.
This is an important moment for the organisation. A professional association cannot be built by structure alone. It needs people behind it: supporters who understand the value of independent representation, serious divers who want to stand with the profession, and working professionals who want a stronger collective voice across the wider diving sector.
The Founding Membership campaign creates a limited founding window for early members who want to be visibly part of this next development phase. The campaign will run until 31 August 2026.
During this period, members can join under founding conditions and be recognised as part of the first active membership base supporting the public structure and long-term development of the IADP.
The diving industry is broad, fragmented, and often underrepresented. Many people work in or around diving without a strong independent structure speaking for the profession as a whole.
The IADP exists to help address that gap. Opening membership is therefore more than an administrative step. It is the point where the organisation begins turning its public platform into a working member-supported structure, aligned with its wider vision and mission.
The Founding Associate Member route is for supporters, serious divers, students, early-stage professionals, and non-professional allies who want to support the IADP and stand behind the wider diving profession.
The Founding Industry Member route is for people connected to the diving industry who want to support the organisation during this founding campaign phase and prepare for future professional participation.
Founding members will be recognised as part of the first active membership phase of the IADP. The two campaign routes create a clear distinction between supporters and serious divers joining as Founding Associate Members, and industry-connected members joining as Founding Industry Members.
Founding members help show that the IADP is backed by people who want stronger independent representation for the diving profession.
Membership support helps the organisation continue developing its public platform, project work, communications, member services, and operational tools.
The campaign gives early supporters a clear place in this development phase and recognises those who join before the full membership structure is progressively expanded.
Every member strengthens the principle that the diving profession deserves a collective, independent, cross-sector voice.
The IADP supports the wider diving profession across every sector connected to underwater work and diving-related activity. This includes recreational diving and training, commercial and industrial operations, scientific and research diving, medical and hyperbaric diving, environmental and restoration work, public safety and military diving, media and communication, manufacturing and trade, operational support infrastructure, and sports and public engagement.
This wider view matters. The diving profession is not limited to one agency, one training system, one business model, or one sector. It includes instructors, guides, captains, commercial divers, researchers, safety personnel, photographers, media workers, equipment specialists, compressor operators, environmental workers, manufacturers, support staff, and many others whose work depends on the underwater world. This broader sector view is also reflected in the IADP’s professional diving overview.
Membership accounts, future member services, benefits, and gated member content will be handled through TheDiveProfessional.org, the operational member platform connected to the IADP.
The official IADP website remains the public institutional platform. TheDiveProfessional.org will serve as the practical member environment where the membership structure can grow step by step.
The IADP will continue publishing updates as the Founding Membership campaign develops. This includes further information about membership routes, professional verification, member services, project participation, and the wider development of the organisation.
The immediate goal is clear: welcome the first active members, build a visible base behind the organisation, and strengthen the foundation for independent representation of the diving profession.
Join the founding membership phase. Supporters, serious divers, professionals, and industry stakeholders can now join the IADP during the Founding Membership campaign and become part of the first active membership base.
IADP – DIVE PROFESSIONALS
International Association of Dive Professionals
Non-Profit Association (ASBL)
Rue Émile Féron 153
1060 Saint-Gilles (Brussels) – Belgium
A proud member of Cité des Associations, Saint-Gilles