From September 26-30 in Alexandria, Egypt, the
International Association of Maritime
Universities (IAMU), a recipient of The Nippon
Foundation's funding, held its 4th Annual
General Assembly.

In the world of international shipping, (for various reasons, but
mainly cost,) sailors of increasingly varied nationalities are now
often sailing together. However, the level of these sailors'
education varies widely from country to country, leading to many
problems, not only limited to linguistic ones. Further, without a
doubt, this mixing of nationalities will continue in the future.
Thus, from the standpoint of safety, each country needs to raise
the level of education at its maritime universities. This education
also needs to be standardized on a global scale.

To meet these needs, IAMU was established in June 2000 with a grant
from The Nippon Foundation, as the world's first network of
maritime universities. It is based in a scholastic and scientific
approach to improve the safety of the world's maritime traffic and
improve the safety management capacity of international maritime
society.

Two of the most defining things that the
members have agreed upon regarding the makeup
of IAMU are

We see the future of this network as leading to reciprocal course
credit between universities, even at the graduate level, and the
standardization of lectures from country to country. Network
affiliates include the World Maritime University, major
universities and institutions in Europe, Asia, Oceania and North
America as well as Kobe University Faculty of Maritime Sciences and
the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, both from
Japan.