The Assembly session will be preceded by the 56th session of the Executive Council acting as the steering committee for the Assembly. 

The elections of the Officers of the Commission and the members of the Executive Council will take place during this session of the Assembly in accordance with the technical arrangements appended to the IOC Rules of Procedure. Candidatures must reach the IOC Secretariat at latest two working days before the day of the elections scheduled on Wednesday 28 June 2023.

In addition to the formal plenary discussion, an Ocean Science Day (OSD) is organised on 22 June to discuss current challenges in ocean science, potentially with a wider audience. The two main items of OSD will be a discussion of opportunities and challenges for adaptation and mitigation to ocean change, followed by a session highlighting the existing contributions of IOC to the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development, and a dialogue on the perspectives, benefits and challenges for future increased contributions by IOC programmes and regional subsidiary bodies to the Decade.