Report of the Professional Education Committee
Summary
Since C100, the work of PEC has continued with sub-committee and working group meetings. We are now preparing for our hybrid PEC plenary at the end of June. This will be in Berlin just ahead of the Student Summit. Please encourage your trainees to become epi students and to consider attending the Student Summit 2026 – epi.
Professional training activities:
CPE Events
In 2025, we held 17 webinars and 4 seminars. The webinars had an average of 63 registrations (ranging between 23 and 134) but on average fewer than 20 people attended in person at each seminar. There were also regular podcasts on a variety of topics in 2025. For example, there were 14 CPE sessions which attracted between 438 and 1283 downloads each.
Positive progress is being made on the events in the EPO-epi workplan. The year kicked off with Search and Examination matters in February. The theme of AI ran through most sessions and around 10 epi members spoke. With 2267 registrations and over 1600 participants (45% of which were patent attorneys), epi was thus able to reach a large and diverse audience. The presentations are now uploaded: https://e-courses.epo.org/course/view.php?id=570.
CPE Guidelines
The draft guidelines will be discussed at the PEC June meeting and should be presented to the Board in September in preparation for presentation at the Council meeting in the Autumn.
EPAC
The EPO recently changed the composition of the EPAC board. The number was reduced from 12 to 8 and the members are now all required to be either EPAC or EQE qualified. Thus many of the experienced paralegals who joined the original EPAC board are no longer eligible and a new board is being constituted..
The EPO launched the CSP for EPAC and 16 states (of the eligible 39 member states) have nominated a candidate. This is comparable with the EQE CSP programme in which 19 of the 39 member states are participating. The relatively low participation is disappointing for candidates who are missing out on the generous support packages offered by the EPO.
The relevant sub-committee of PEC is working on a revised epi course to support candidates with the new modular system for EPAC.
EQE work
2026 is the last year of the old-style papers. There are approximately 700 candidates for the last paper A, 750 for paper B and 1000 candidates for each of papers C and D.
Turning to the new EQE, 607 candidates sat the first paper F in 2025 and around 500 of the 523 successful candidates are enrolled for the first papers M1 and M2. The results for paper F 2026 are available and the statistics for 2025 and 2026 are compared below:
| 2025 Examiner’s report | 2026 Examiner’s report | |
|---|---|---|
| Part 1 Pass mark | 70% (35/50) | 60% (30/50) |
| Part 2 Pass mark | 70.2% (33/48) Q10 neutralised | 64% (32/50) |
EQE training
There are mock papers available for all of M1 to M4 on the EQE website. Please provide any feedback on the mock papers to PEC or direct to the Exam Board. There are additional sample papers prepared by epi.
Our support for candidates sitting the current EQE continues and the tutor consultation hours were particularly popular. Please encourage your EQE candidates to become epi members to access all these trainings.
EQE CSP
The Candidate Support Program (CSP) has completed its first year under the new format, involving 44 candidates and 13 coaches. The EPO has conducted two surveys to assess the engagement and satisfaction of both candidates and coaches. The results of the first survey indicated generally very positive interaction between candidates and coaches, with only a small number rating their collaboration below “highly satisfied”. Of the 20 CSP candidates who sat Paper F, 16 passed. This corresponds to a pass rate of 80% for CSP candidates, which is slightly below the overall EQE pass rate of 84%. The pass rate and the second survey are being analysed.
Other matters
The first pilot mentoring program for epi students has concluded and as agreed by the Board, a second pilot mentoring program will run starting earlier in the year.
After a long gap, a meeting of the EPO-epi working group on the proposed changes to the IPREE for Rules 11 to 13 relating to ECTS credits and stacking was held in December. Another meeting was held in February 2026 and no further meeting is scheduled. There is little progress to report.
