IAME 2011: KNow-ME Special Session

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Created on Monday, 12 December 2011 09:55

The International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME) held its 2011 conference in Santiago, Chile, in October. The event was organised by the Transport Research Institute (TRI) and the Institute of Transport and Maritime Management Antwerp (ITMMA) and hosted by the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The KNow-ME project held a special session which focused on maritime education and training. The session was chaired by KNow-ME partner Jacobs University as represented by Prof Jens Froese. Papers were presented on skills development, teaching, and the quality of labour markets. The event was an excellent chance to disseminate the project itself as well as its purpose amongst the leading academic figures in the maritime field. The conference was heavily attended by industry, particularly from Latin America, but also from Europe and the USA.

More generally, the IAME conference was based on a simple concept: shipping services and ports play a critical role as facilitators of trade. In an environment of changing economic conditions, increasing environmental challenges and pressures on the human element in the shipping and port industry, collaboration, knowledge exchange and new ideas are needed more than ever before. The event featured academic papers with original ideas that analysed, discussed and proposed solutions to these exciting new challenges across the globe and particularly in Latin America. Each day ended with a plenary session featuring distinguished speakers from academia and industry. These sessions discussed current issues following an introductory statement by the moderator and picked up on many of the points raised by the academic papers presented during the day.