The International Association of Maritime Universities IAMU held an extraordinary meeting of its International Executive Board in Tokyo on 13th and 14th February 2023. During the meeting, its members elected the Chair and the permanent members of the Committee for the years 2023-2025.

HM Rector Professor Adam Weintrit was elected general Chair of the International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU) and also the Head of the Policy and Planning Committee. The appointment of GMU Rector Professor Adam Weintrit for such a prestigious position is both a great honour and also represents the culmination of the University’s involvement in the Association since its beginning in 2000.

"We have been given an exceptional honour as, for the next two years, the leadership of the organisation has been entrusted to the Rector of Gdynia Maritime University", emphasised Rector Professor Adam Weintrit. "I believe we will make the right use of this time". The decision taken during the meeting of the Association’s Executive Board in Tokyo is the result of our efforts and more than 20 years of activity within the Association. This couldn’t have been achieved without the invaluable contribution of GMU Professor Bogumił Łączyński, the current Director of the Ship Management and Maritime Practices Department, who held the role of IAMU Contact Person from 2000 until 2020. Thanks to his personal involvement - with the active participation of previous Rectors Professor Piotr Przybyłowski, Professor Józef Lisowski, Professor Romuald Cwilewicz, Professor Piotr Jędrzejowicz, and Professor Janusz Zarębski - the favourable position of our University within IAMU has been consistently developed and established. For the past two years, the University’s reputation has been under the care of GMU Professor Adam Przybyłowski, GMU’s IAMU Contact Person. I trust that over the next two years, we will have a very active role as leader of the world's maritime universities."

The role of Chair of the Academic Affairs Committee, which was until recently led by Professor Weintrit, has now been taken over by Professor Nafiz Arica, the Rector of Piri Reis University in Turkey. The Liaison Committee remains in the hands of Dr Cleopatry Dounbia-Henry, the President of the World Maritime University. Control of the Finance Committee has now passed from Admiral Eduardo Ma R Santos, the President of the Philippine Maritime Academy of Asia and the Pacific, to Professor Ana Peric Hadzic, Dean of the Faculty of Maritime Studies of the University of Rijeka, Croatia.

Shortly after the election of the Chair of the IAMU, a ceremony took place for the transfer of the insignia of authority (necklace) to the new Chair of the Association. The symbolic, richly decorated necklace was passed on by the long-serving head of IAM, Professor Glenn Blackwood, Vice-President of the Fisheries and Marine Institute of Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, in the company of the Executive Director of IAMU, Dr Takeshi Nakazawa.

The latter part of the Executive Board meeting was led by the newly elected Chair. GMU Rector will also chair an IEB working meeting in preparation for the next IAMU General Assembly, which will take place in Satakunta, Finland, in October 2023.