A "Non-profit Partnership for Coordination of the use of the Northern Sea Route" was founded on June 28, 2001. Artur Chilingarov, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma of the Russian Federation, was elected as the first President of the partnership. Nowadays, the Partnership has been turned into the Northern Sea Route Association. Artur Chilingarov, Special Representative of the President for International Cooperation in the Arctic and Antarctic, remains the President of Association, which is a non-profit organization.

            The Association's main goal is to coordinate its members' activities in order to effectively use the Northern Sea Route, to promote merchant shipping, to represent and to protect interests of all members of merchant shipping through the NSR in property, economy-wide, technical and legal issues. The Association believes that the international cooperation in the Arctic is an important part of its activities. The Association's priority areas are: to develop proposals on securing safety and profitability of maritime navigation, environment protection in the Arctic. 

            Over 50 organizations both from Russia and foreign countries are members of the NSR Association and we believe that the geography of the Association's members will expand further. The President of the Russian Federation has set a goal to increase the NSR freight traffic to 80 million tons to 2024 and the Association believes that achieving this goal is quite possible.

            For many years Vladimir Mikhailichenko, Honorary Polar Explorer and a Sea Captain, was an Executive Director of the Association. In 2019 he passed on the position to Pavel Valentinovich Seleznev, who lived and worked in Yakutia for many years. Vladimir Galaktionovich Kharlov is the Vice-President of the Association; for many years he lived and worked in the Russian North - the city of Arkhangelsk, which is Russia's first seaport.

            The Association's new leadership believes that it is important to consolidate efforts aimed on infrastructural development of the Northern Sea Route.

            The Association's annual meetings shall, first of all, attract government authorities on all levels, representatives of transportation business, ports, energy sector, NSR Administration, scientific-research and financial institutions. The Arctic is our common home and the Northern Sea Route shall become an important transportation route not only for the "Arctic Eight" but for the entire global society. There's no room for confrontation and conflicts in the Arctic's harsh conditions so the Northern Sea Route shall become an effective transportation corridor where there always will be place for common sense and courage. The NSR Association believes in importance of participation in general international Arctic-related events both in Russia and abroad. In general, the matters of addressing the NSR And the Arctic's infrastructural development require enormous financial expenses and no country can manage it alone. Therefore, the matters of public-private partnerships, active dialogue with all members of the Arctic Council and Observer states of the esteemed Council will always be the focus of our day-to-day work.