02.01.2019 | Professor Anna-Katharina Hornidge, head of the social sciences department at ZMT, has been appointed as the new director of the International Ocean Institute (IOI) in Germany effective from January 2019. She will take over from Dr. Werner Ekau who is due to retire from ZMT and IOI in 2019.
Antonella Vassallo, managing director of IOI headquarters in Malta, has welcomed Professor Hornidge to the position: “We look forward to working with Anna-Katharina Hornidge and to further enhancing the strong and fruitful relationship with IOI Germany. Her professional and personal qualities will be an asset to the role,” Ms. Vassallo wrote in a letter confirming the succession.
Thanking Dr. Ekau for his work for IOI she continued: “I commend Dr. Ekau for the many years of support and dedication to IOI and for his advice and input during his tenure also as Chair of Directors on the IOI Governing Board. His work over this time has been invaluable and essential in many forms.”
Dr. Ekau has been at the helm of the IOI Centre Germany since its inauguration in 2002, when IOI founder Elisabeth Mann Borgese paid a visit to ZMT in Bremen.
Reflecting on his work for IOI he says: “It has been a great experience and an absolute honour to promote the important work of IOI founder, the late Elisabeth Mann Borgese, over many years. In view of climate change, the problem of plastic pollution of the seas and the slow demise of biodiversity, protecting the oceans remains a vital task and Mann Borgese’s call "We must save the oceans if we want to save ourselves!" is as relevant now as it was during her lifetime.”
His successor Professor Hornidge says of her new role: “I am very happy to have been chosen as the new director of IOI Germany taking over the baton from my colleague Werner Ekau."
About the International Ocean Institute (IOI)
The International Ocean Institute (IOI) is a world leading independent, non-governmental, non-profit organisation conducting training and capacity building in Ocean Governance globally. It aims to train young and mid-career practitioners in contemporary approaches to coastal and ocean management, with an emphasis on the moral, ethical and legal values in Ocean Governance (equity and peaceful uses of the ocean).
In 1972, the IOI was founded by Professor Elisabeth Mann Borgese. Its establishment was a milestone in the struggle to promote the concept of Pacem in Maribus (peace in the oceans) and conservation of the ocean and its resources so that future generations can share in their benefits. The IOI enjoys special consultative status with the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) and consultative status at some of UN’s Specialized Agencies, the IOI works to uphold and expand the principle of the common heritage as defined in the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea.
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