Through its Agency Certification Award program, the Universal Public Procurement Certification Council (UPPCC) identifies organizations that have earned the distinguished and unique honor of achieving and/or maintaining a high percentage of staff that are UPPCC Certified. This program was developed to recognize those organizations that have made a concerted effort to achieve procurement excellence.

Each agency category has a specified percentage of qualifying procurement staff that must be UPPCC certified in order to achieve the award. These three categories corresponding requirements are as follows:

The UPPCC Agency Certification Award is an annual recognition for which qualifying agencies must apply every year for consideration. The Sterling Agency Award, is an advanced level of recognition reserved for those agencies that apply for and achieve UPPCC Agency Certification Award recognition for three consecutive years.

The application for UPPCC Agency Certification is available on a continuous basis allowing agencies to apply at any time during a given calendar year for recognition. Agencies must apply during the calendar year in order to receive recognition for that year. To be included in the award announcements at the NIGP Annual Forum, the UPPCC must receive the agency's application for processing no later than June 1. Successful agency applications received after that date will still be recognized for that calendar year, but publicly recognized at the NIGP Annual Forum the following year.