The UK InterRidge Office is delighted to announce that a proposal to host the InterRidge Office led by Prof John Chen (School of Earth and Space Sciences, Peking University, Beijing) and Dr Jiabiao Li (Second Institute of Oceanography, Hangzhou) was approved at the recent InterRidge Steering Committee meeting held in St Petersburg, Russia (2-3rd June, 2012). From January 2013, John Chen will be InterRidge Chair with Jiabiao Li as Co-Chair. Both have long and well-established careers in Marine Science and mid-ocean ridge research. The move to the University of Peking in Beijing, China, is extremely exciting: as a relatively recent full member of InterRidge, China has made rapid advances in ridge crest studies and is investing strongly in new technologies including a manned submersible. Congratulations and we look forward to China leading interRidge over the next few years.