L- R Dr M Mejia, Professor P Mukherjee, Capt A Winbow, Professor W Talley, John Holmyard, Dr Jing jing Xu (Conference Director) Professor David Wheeler, Peter Hinchliffe OBE and Professor G Rozynski
The first ‘International Conference on Marine and Maritime Affairs’ (ICMMA1) supported by the Marine Institute, took place in April 2011.
Invited Speakers and delegates came from across the world including America, Australia, Croatia, China, (including Dalian, Hong Kong and Shanghai) , Finland, Norway, Portugal, Poland, Spain and Sweden.
The Vice Chancellor & Chief Executive Professor Wendy Purcell opened the Conference stressing the importance and opportunities for the City and University in the development of marine and maritime activities. She spoke of the new £19 Million marine building which will open in 2012 and house ‘state of the art’ wave tanks and a new marine simulator, as part of the University’s ongoing commitment to marine and maritime.
The conference was organised under three broad themes, Maritime Safety and Security, Shipping and Port Management and Sustainable Management & the Marine Environment. Ten keynote speeches were given by leading international figures including Captain Andy Winbow, Assistant Secretary General of the International Maritime Organisation - also an alumni of the University, Professor Mukherjee of the World Maritime University in Sweden and Peter Hincliffe OBE, Secretary General of the International Chamber of Shipping.
Within the programme were two parallel sessions which involved the presentation of twenty - two peer reviewed papers All subjects of the parallel sessions were of contemporary interest, provided academic grounding and evoked much discussion.
A set of conference papers is to be published and plans are in place for ICMMA 2 to take place in the Spring of 2013.
