Gdynia Maritime University GMU

Speech by HM The Rector of Gdynia Maritime University for University Celebration Day 2023

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I am very pleased to welcome you here to Gdynia Maritime University for the ceremonial sitting of the GMU Senate on the occasion of University Celebration Day. 

103 years ago, the white and red flag was ceremonially raised on the building of the Maritime School in Tczew. 8th December is a special day for Gdynia Maritime University and maritime education in Poland as a whole. Just as our frigate, Dar Młodzieży, continues the tradition of Lwów and later Dar Pomorza, so we, as the community of Gdynia Maritime University, have the privilege and the honour of cultivating and continuing the mission that was began by lecturers and students, the pioneers of the Polish merchant fleet. This year, we honoured them with the 100th Anniversary Voyage Across the Equator, recalling the feat of the "Lwów" - the first ship flying the Polish flag to cross the equator 100 years ago, in 1923, on a training voyage to Brazil. 100 years later, on 28th September, Dar Mlodzieży, captained by Rafał Szymanski, and with 2nd-year Faculty of Navigation students on board, crossed the equator about 200 miles from the coast of Brazil,  by paying tribute to the "cradle of navigators" - the nickname by which our first training ship, Lwów was known.

Here, we should also mention the success enjoyed by Dar Młodziezy at this time two events, the Tall Ship Races, and the Tall Ship Races Magellan – Elcano. During the closing ceremony of the International Sail Training & Tall Ships Conference 2023 in November of this year in Dunkirk, Dar Młodzieży was honoured with one of the most prestigious sailing awards in the world, the Sultan Qaboos Sailing Trophy. My sincerest congratulations to our ship's captain, Captain Rafał Szymanski. Please pass on my compliments to the crew and students currently on their training voyages.

The recent 100th Anniversary Voyage Across the Equator was organised by the late Director of the Ship Management Department, Professor Bogumił Łączyński. Through this short historical outline, I would like to highlight how important it is for our community to cultivate tradition, which is nothing more than an intergenerational bridge between the past and the present.

I would like to thank you very much for taking the time to be with us today. 8th December is a special celebration, the anniversary of the historic beginnings of education at our University, following the end of the Polish-Soviet War.

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The end of the year is a time of summary and planning for the future. It is to this that I would like to dedicate today's speech. It is impossible to mention all the successes of the students and employees of our University during the past year. But you will learn of them, Ladies and Gentlemen, as soon as the awards, decorations and distinctions are presented. I would like to congratulate all those who have been awarded and thank you for your hard work for Gdynia Maritime University and Maritime Poland. 

As is tradition, we meet again this year in the Tadeusz Meissner auditorium, although initially it was planned that December's University Celebration Day would take place for the first time in Gdansk, in the newly opened Offshore Centre. An extremely important investment, both for the University and the national offshore wind energy sector, which is almost been completed. However, we still have to wait a short time to invite you to the new headquarters of the GMU Maritime Institute. I am convinced that this will take place at the beginning of next year. Speaking of investments, the construction of the Sports and Recreation Centre is in the finishing stages. I hope that come spring, we will be proud of the modern facility that students and our entire academic community have been waiting for many years. Here I would like to thank the Chancellor, Filip Malata, his team, and his closest partners for their creativity, enthusiasm, and commitment. Both investment projects have been carried out in accordance with their plans, which in these difficult times, is far from simple and should not be taken for granted.

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

During the past year, our great friend Professor Hans Rummel of Hochschule Bremerhaven joined the group of people awarded for their contributions to our Alma Mater. I would like to inform you that on 16 November, on my recommendation, the Senate adopted a resolution awarding an honorary doctoral degree to Professor Bradford Parkinson of Stanford University, known as the father of GPS. On Tuesday 28 November, a presentation of a film dedicated to this great scientist took place during the weekly meeting of the Association of Master Mariners, at the Maximum Auditorium in the Faculty of Navigation. Many students of the Faculty of Navigation also attended the screening. The ceremony for the conferral of a doctorate honoris causa will take place in 2024. The exact date of the event will be set by the new director of the GMU Maritime Institute, Professor Krzysztof Czaplewski, who is currently out in the USA. It is a great honour that such outstanding scientists accept from us the highest distinction in the academic world.

We are consistently developing international cooperation, and this year we have hosted government and academic delegations from many countries. Two weeks ago, we were visited by the Rector of Nikola Vaptsarov Naval Academy in Bulgaria, Flotilla Admiral Boyan Mednikarov. Together, we are striving for closer cooperation through the creation of a consortium of European maritime universities. I would like to remind you that, since February of this year, we have officially been the leader of the International Association of Maritime Universities, and have the honour of chairing this association of 74 universities and institutions from all continents responsible for academic-level maritime training. 

The quality that we offer is demonstrated by the fact that the staff of our University are once again included in the list of the top two per cent of most influential scientists in the world, as published by Stanford University, and our young scientists are being awarded the scholarships offered by the Minister of Education and Science. A few days ago, the Polish Academy of Sciences announced the results of elections to the Scientific Committees of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Six of our University's professors were included in this prestigious group, with two of them being elected to two committees. In total, GMU will be represented in as many as five Academy of Science committees. I can proudly say that this year, we have added two new professors to our staff. Once again, I would like to congratulate Professor Krzysztof Czaplewski and Professor Ireneusz Czarnowski.

We are pleased to note the steady increase in the position of our University over the past few years in the "Perspektywy" Education Foundation's University Rankings, although we are not yet completely satisfied with our place in those rankings. Our ranking is much more promising3 among other maritime universities, not only from Poland or Europe but around the world. The International Conference TransNav on Marine Navigation and Safety of Sea Transportation has become a permanent fixture in the calendar of the biggest maritime events in Europe.

I was delighted to collect the prestigious Gold Anchor in the offshore category on behalf of our University during the Baltexpo International Maritime Fair in October. The award was given in recognition of our work in "education and research for the needs of offshore wind energy". During the conference summarising the granting of permits for the wind farm, organised on 2nd October in Warsaw by the Ministry of Infrastructure, during the September Economic Forum in Karpacz, as well as during the October Maritime Economy Forum in Gdynia, I had the opportunity to convey to the participants of these events the importance of our University's role in the energy transition process. Through our teaching, scientific, training and advisory activities, we support the diversification of energy sources, especially the development of the offshore wind energy sector. Special emphasis should be given to the expert activity of the Maritime Institute, in the context of environmental research carried out in connection with the OWE (maritime wind energy) and our activity in collaboration with Professor Sambor Guze as part of the Coordination Committee for  Offshore Wind Energy in the Ministry for Climate and the Environment.

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We also make sure that our initiatives can be used by the local community. An example of such activities is one of the largest permanent orienteering courses in the country, which we opened two months ago. The project, which was initiated and managed by Dr Piotr Kopacz of the Department of Navigation, was successful thanks to the cooperation of the Gdansk Forestry Agency. The GMU Permanent Orienteering Courses are located in the Tri-City Natural Park in the vicinity of the University and are made up of a dense network of checkpoints, which may be used for sport, leisure, and teaching purposes.

We cooperate with the biggest and most important economic entities in the Polish market, both locally and globally. A long list of our partners can be found on our website. We can be proud that just a few days ago we signed an agreement with the company Schneider Electric Polska. We are conducting advanced talks with Boeing Poland, Caterpillar Marine, Kongsberg and the Wärtsilä shipyard, not to mention the largest shipping companies. Most importantly, the biggest beneficiaries of these relations between business and the University will be not only our scientists but also current and future Gdynia Maritime University students. 

In three weeks, the year 2023 will be over, and we are still uncertain whether the assumptions and criteria currently used to assess the quality of scientific activity will be the same at the time of the next assessment in 2026. The University, especially the Deans of the Faculties, the Director of the Maritime Institute and the heads of each academic discipline, is constantly monitoring the current scientific achievements of our staff in disciplines that Gdynia Maritime University intends to be assessed on during the next evaluation. For this, I am very grateful. We are halfway through the current evaluation period. The Deputy Rector for Science, Professor Dariusz Barbucha, and the Deputy Rector for Cooperation and Development, Professor Tomasz Tarasiuk, and I will propose changes to the Regulations for the award of Rector's Awards and Rector's Bonuses, aimed at further strengthening the motivation of academic teachers to publish the results of their research in renowned, highly pointed scientific journals, the commercialisation of these results and the application for funding for research from external sources. We assume that the quality of the scientific achievements of our staff and research teams will allow the University to be placed in high scientific categories within the next two years. We have high hopes following the establishment of the Technology Transfer Centre at the beginning of the year.

The team of lawyers is also completing work on the revision of our Staff Regulations and the Staff Remuneration Regulations, which will be introduced later this year.

Time has shown that the decisions made by us to launch new academic fields and specialisations have proved to be a big success. The Executive Offshore Wind MBA, which has been in operation for less than two years, is already widely renowned, and in a few months, our first group of participants will graduate with the Executive Master of Business Administration international diploma issued by Gdynia Maritime University.

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Today, we face another challenge and set ourselves another goal to achieve. That goal is autonomous shipping. MASS (Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships) are already in operation. The challenge for the future, however, is autonomous shipping, a far wider matter which is still awaiting international standardisation in terms of its technology, but perhaps more noticeably in its legal aspects; economical, ecological and safety considerations in order to allow autonomous ships to move freely throughout the world's waters.

Last week, on 30th November, during a seminar on autonomous shipping, I drew attention to the special mission, role and tasks faced by the University as an institution of maritime higher education, which must maintain all current marine-based fields of operation and technological development within the scope of its aspirations, interests and activities, both in relation to scientific research and education and development, whilst also turning an eye to the future of marine enterprise. In short, institutions of higher maritime education must observe, monitor and react to everything that is happening in world shipping, but also foresee the directions in which shipping is going in the near future, or 5 or 10 years. Autonomous shipping is an area which is continuously more boldly developed by maritime universities around the world with new laboratories, sections, departments, and institutes being developed, new academic fields and specialisations being established, and more sophisticated research projects being carried out. I strongly believe here at Gdynia Maritime University, we should also be headed in this direction. The global shipping industry will soon need specialists in the operation of unmanned vessels, and the launch of study programmes in this area may result in an interest in our University from students from all over Europe. Of course, this will only happen if we can properly recognise and continue to recognise the demand of the market and the prevailing development trends in the maritime economy.

As leaders of the International Association of Maritime Universities (IAMU), we are in the spotlight - the eyes of the entire maritime world, or at least the maritime university members of IAMU, and on us waiting for us to lead the way in developing common initiatives.

I have made many promises to myself following the recent appointment of the Rafal Stepnowski Think Tank, especially in the context outlined at the first meeting of the Think Tank Council, the concept of internationalisation and positioning of this initiative in a global context, focused initially on the American market. I would like to remind you that the signatories to this agreement are the rectors of the ten Polish technical universities operating in the space, maritime, and aerospace sectors. The November meeting provided arguments that the development of a Polish Think Tank within the world ecosystem is not only possible but highly desirable. I hope - I'm afraid it may sound a little high-pitched now - that we will be given the opportunity to carry out what is a difficult, full of challenges and uncertainty, but also ambitious project that is necessary for our country, as well as for Polish science, a project that developing at different levels our technological sovereignty and international authority.

As I mentioned at the beginning of my speech, our University has a rich history, and we put a great deal of effort into cultivating the customs and traditions of the sea by honouring the memory of our staff and graduates. This work includes the books we publish. Today, we are going to launch another book written by  Małgorzata Sokołowska and Joanna Stasiak, "The Biographical Dictionary of the Graduates of the State Maritime School in exile in England 1940-1945", the third volume of this series of books on our graduates. Following the "Biographical Dictionary of Graduates of the Maritime School in Tczew, 1922-1930, and the "Biographical Dictionary of the Graduates of the State Maritime School in Gdynia, 1931-1939, the work focuses on the biographies of the graduates of the Maritime School in exile in London and Southampton, where our University continued its educational mission during the war.

At almost exactly the same time, at the end of September 1939, two groups of our students - those from Dar Pomorza and Chrobry ships found themselves in Great Britain. These were 17 to 21-year-olds, who were on summer training voyages. The war not only interrupted their education but also kept them away from their homeland and their families. These were joined by those who managed to get to the British Isles in other ways. The authors, Malgorzata Sokołowska and Joanna Stasiak have tried to discover the details of what happened to these young people. Thanks to Captain Konstantyn Kowalski  - his enthusiasm, diligence and organisational talent, as well as a group of his collaborators and members of the Polish government responsible for maritime education, we can proudly say today that Maritime School never abandoned its mission to educate both ship officers and mechanics for the Polish merchant navy, fighting alongside the Allies first with Nazi Germany, but also with the Japanese in the Pacific.

Next year, I would like to successfully implement a project I have had in mind since the pandemic. Namely, the installation of memorial plaques commemorating the continued education of our students at four schools in Great Britain during the war. 

Esteemed Senate, Ladies and Gentlemen,

I hope that today's celebration will provide an exceptional opportunity to reminisce about the past. I wish all graduates, students, doctoral candidates, teaching and administration to always feel a part of our maritime community, and remember that the spirit of our community is born of the efforts we put in every day and not only from the holidays. This is also an excellent opportunity to invite you to visit the University's ship, Dar Młodzieży this Sunday with your families. An open day will be held from 10:00 until 17:00 hours on board the ship in the Pomeranian Quay. After 16:00, there will be a performance of Christmas carols by our University choir, directed by Dr Karol Hilla. The performance will be open to the public. The President of Gdynia, Dr Wojciech Szczurek, the Captain of Dar Młodzieży, Rafał Szymanski, and the Director of the Ship Management Office Dariusz Jellonek and I will be switching on the lights on the tallest Christmas tree in the Tricity, which decorates the mainmast of Dar Młodziezy. This has become a tradition in recent years.

Once again, I congratulate all those who will be honoured, decorated and awarded in just a moment. Thank you for your support and commitment. Together, we can do great things. I wish you further success. 

At the end of my speech, and it may come as a surprise to some I have chosen today's celebration to announce my decision to stand for re-election in next year's elections to the post of Rector at our University. My slogan and the main aim I intend to set for myself will be to achieve the further internationalisation of our University in all possible areas. I would like to further open the doors of our University, together with our extensive infrastructure and educational and research potential, to foreign students and doctoral candidates mainly from African countries, Central Europe and the Far East. I invite those who like me, in times of demographic decline, see this as an opportunity for the further development of our University and the full exploitation of our potential to work together to create a common plan and strategy for the coming years. I welcome with enthusiasm and interest all new initiatives put forward in this regard.                                            

Thank you for your attention.