In addition, during the agenda item 'Election of new co-chairs', they received a standing ovation from the more than one hundred delegates.  According to Stein van Oosteren of the Permanent Dutch Delegation to UNESCO  this was "a rare token of appreciation in this kind of forum!".  It has been the first time that a NIOZ person has chaired a UN organization (and also the first time that a Dutchman has chaired IODE).

The award was presented to Sergey Belov (r) and Taco de Bruin (l) by Ariel Troisi, Chair Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC)

Ariel Troisi, Chair Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) commented on the award in his speech:  "We want to thank Sergey and Taco for being our IODE Co-Chairs during the past 4 years. While the tasks assigned to a Chair or Co-Chair of IODE was fairly limited during the first 50 years of IODE, this has changed a lot during the past decade. Co-Chairs now have a wide range of responsibilities including promoting IODE at events, participating in even more meetings, represent IODE in all sorts of working groups, chair meetings of the IODE management group, and working close together with the IODE Secretariat."

"But again let us not forget the challenges that we all faced during Covid: in 2021, for the first time ever, we had to organize our IODE Session online. This was totally uncharted territory for all of us but Sergey and Taco managed it perfectly. There 2 terms also included the adoption of several key strategic documents: a new DIM strategy, a new data policy, several new manuals and guides and of course let us not forget, defining with all of you the role of IODE in the Ocean Decade. While the financial challenges to IODE are still very challenging Sergey and Taco’s leadership has put us on a potentially strong course. We therefore thank them for their leadership during the past 4 years. But we also hope that they will share their experience and expertise with the 2 new incoming Co-Chairs."