Search and Rescue (SAR) issues have always been high up on the agenda of the International Maritime Organization (IMO). However, a number of activities are carried out by various players within the SAR community that are not always reported to the appropriate IMO committees for a number of reasons. In order to gather more information about these developments the IMO MSC has given the task to the World Maritime University (WMU) to search for information about research projects, training courses and other relevant developments within the SAR community. WMU will collect information and summarize it. The analysis of these summaries will be reported to IMO.