Having reimagined the Antwerp edition of the IAPH World Ports Conference as an online event, IAPH rescheduled the following edition to May 2022. Meanwhile, the association moved to expand its membership outreach channels and social media engagement while making significant institutional changes. It was reorganised around a set of three leading technical committees and it also saw the organisational incorporation of the Environmental Ship Index (ESI); the IAPH Insider biweekly newsletter also made its debut. Meanwhile, the unique working circumstances of the pandemic continued to encourage the creation of essential publications to support industry development, with IAPH’s Cybersecurity Guidelines for Ports and Port Facilities published in September 2021. That year also saw the completion of a reform and rebranding process that covered the World Ports Conference, the bi-monthly Ports & Harbors member magazine, and the mother brand of IAPH, culminating with an upgrade to the association’s website. With the gradual lifting of lockdowns, the Vancouver conference represented the first time that members had met face to face since the Guangzhou conference of 2019. The event, which was opened with a video message from Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, saw the presentation of the results of a global supply chain stakeholder engagement exercise and roadmap on how to ‘Close The Gaps’ in international port infrastructure, undertaken in collaboration with the World Bank, as well as the conference debut of the Port Endeavor business game, launched the previous year. The first IAPH World Ports Tracker report was later published, followed by the full Close the Gaps report and, shortly after that, the Risk and Resilience guidelines. It was a period of high energy and industry for IAPH.
IAPH’s three new leading technical committees met in person at the 2022 IAPH Conference in Vancouver
