Yesterday, we had the pleasure to welcome Donna Hopkins in Cardiff. Mrs. Hopkins is the maritime security coordinator of the U.S. State Department and former Chairman of the Contact Group on Piracy off the Coast of Somalia (CGPCS). She was visiting the university to discuss the first outcomes of our Lessons Learned Project.  Cardiff University joined an international consortium of leading research institutions in November 2013 commissioned by the CGPCS to capture its experience, draw lessons of its work and ask how its success story can be replicated. The CGPCS is the main global governance vehicle driving the concerted efforts by the international community to curb piracy off the coast of Somalia. Somali piracy has threatened international trade and commerce and seafarers since 2007. The CGPCS was founded in 2008 following up on a Security Council resolution to address this challenge. If hundreds of ships were attacked between 2008 and 2012, and over one thousand seafarers held hostage for ransom, since 2012 no piracy attack was successful. The CGPCS is behind the tremendous success of the international community in containing piracy. The Lessons Learned project is capturing this success story and in a two year effort attempts to analyse it in order to draw lessons for other core challenges of global governance. Throughout the day we discussed some of these lessons with Mrs. Hopkins and the students of my  MSc piracy seminar had the opportunity to meet and discuss their research projects with her.