Drum Corps Europe is introducing a new level of strategic partner, known as 'Certified Partners'. National organisations that use the DCE Competition Manual for all their contests, and also use the DCE judging team may call themselves 'DCE Certified Partners'.

The 'Certified Partnership' idea is a result of discussions between DCE and national drum corps organisations over the last few years, with the goal of achieving European uniformity at all contests. This system will make it possible to draw a direct comparison from the scores of the different DCE Certified Partners, as the same manual will be used and the DCE judges are specially trained for the DCE manual.

Corps who, in addition to contests of their own national organisation, also want to participate in contests from other certified organisations can count on the same judging and scoring that they are accustomed to from their own organisation.

DCE has since invited the national drum corps organisations to become a Certified Partner.