An Approved Activity Provider (AAP) is an organisation which has been granted a licence by The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award to provide Expedition, Residential and/or Volunteering opportunities to participants.
AAPs come in all different shapes and sizes; they may be commercial organisations, not for profit organisations or charities, they may also operate on a local, national or international scale. The AAP licence is a quality standard on an organisation's activity meeting the programme and sectional requirements of the DofE.
In order to hold a licence, The Duke of Edinburgh’s Award will have been satisfied that the respective programmes offered by AAPs will meet the requirements of the DofE Expedition, Residential and/or Volunteering section. Please note that the AAP licence does not guarantee the suitability of an AAP in terms of health and safety or its financial stability. Licensed Organisations using AAPs will have their own process for checking the suitability of AAP programmes in terms of health and safety requirements for their young people and they have the final say on the appropriateness of a course in this respect.
It is mandatory for an organisation to hold an Expedition AAP licence in order to run any aspect of the Expedition section. It is however possible to offer activities that may count towards the Residential or Volunteering section(s) without an AAP licence.
The AAP logo identifies an organisation as one for our Approved Activity Providers. If an organisation is not listed on our website then they are not an AAP.
Use our AAP Finder to choose the right AAP for you...
Who can deliver DofE expeditions?
The Expedition section must be delivered either directly by Licensed Organisations (LO) through their LO licence or through AAPs. Expeditions not delivered by an LO and their staff/volunteers must be delivered through a licensed AAP. The DofE charity also runs some open expeditions which can be found here:
