H4PERION aims to accelerate the decarbonisation of long-distance shipping by developing and demonstrating a hydrogen/biomethane-capable marine internal combustion engine, together with fuel supply, blending and exhaust aftertreatment systems.

BLUEVISION aims to strengthen maritime safety, sustainability and skills by developing sustainable predictive maintenance in maritime infrastructures through augmented reality, digital twins and industrial metaverse tools. The project will create SPMM microcourses and certification pathways, launch entrepreneurial maritime incubators, support pan-European skills portability, and pilot work-based learning through a maritime industrial metaverse platform.

ESY aims to promote sustainable shipbuilding and circularity in European shipyards. The project develops solutions to reduce shipyard environmental impact, improve energy efficiency, optimise operations, support material circularity through an EU material passport for ships, and strengthen the transition towards smart, sustainable and green shipbuilding.

NextFuel aims to industrialise an electrically heated steam methane reforming technology for producing sustainable methanol and next-generation shipping fuels.

LH2CRAFT aims to develop a next-generation, sustainable, commercially attractive and safe solution for long-term storage and long-distance transportation of liquid hydrogen on commercial vessels. The project develops an innovative cargo containment system for high-capacity LH2 storage at -253 C, demonstrates and validates it through a reduced-size prototype, and supports its future uptake through safety and risk assessment, approval by classification societies, integrated ship design, cost estimation and life-cycle assessment.

SAFeCRAFT aims to develop and demonstrate the safety and viability of Sustainable Alternative Fuels (SAFs) in waterborne transport and accelerate their adoption. The project demonstrates SAF-enabling technologies for oceangoing and short-sea vessels, including liquid and compressed green hydrogen, LOHCs and ammonia.

PreMETS aims to create a European education and training alliance for predictive maintenance.

FLEXSHIP will facilitate the transition of the waterborne sector towards climate neutrality by delivering a digital green concept for electrification of vessels consisting of a Green Digital Twin (GDT) for designing fit-for-purpose vessel electrical grid architectures and integrating a large battery capacity system into two existing vessel (DEMO 1 & 2) electrical systems, a compact, low-weight, modular and simple, high-efficiency battery system, and a safe integration guide of the system onboard ensuring system interoperability.

DT4GS project will deliver an “Open Digital Twin Framework” for both shipping companies and the broader waterborne industry actors to tap into new opportunities made available through the use of Digital Twinning innovations to support smart green shipping applications in both the upgrade of existing ships, as well as the building of new vessels.

The NH3CRAFT project aims at fully designing, engineering, developing and demonstrating a next generation sustainable, commercially attractive and safe technology for high-quantity on-board storage of NH3 as marine fuel.

The concept of TRA2024 project is to organize two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2024:The TRA VISIONS 2024 YOUNG RESEARCHER COMPETITION, a young researcher competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers and students in the field of sustainable surface transport.The TRA VISIONS 2024 SENIOR RESEARCHER COMPETITION, a competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

The project will design, develop and test a holistic driving ability assessment system for commercial drivers to be used pre-driving, during driving and at the roadside, paired with cloud-based countermeasure and coaching solutions.

LASTING will broaden engagement of the broader waterborne transport sector in European RD&I activities, by developing a communication strategy, and implementing a long-lasting communication campaign beyond the lifetime of this project, ultimately increasing, stakeholder engagement in the sector and thereby increasing impact of European waterborne transport RD&I

The fast-paced diffusion of digital media imposes the need for social network solutions also in education and research. The EU-funded prodPhD project is introducing innovative social network-based methodologies for entrepreneurship education in PhD programmes. The project is based on four ERASMUS+ and MSCA-ITN projects run by 20 higher education institutions from nine different EU countries and more than 25 companies and research centres. Moreover, it expands to four H2020 running projects and 16 other European associations and organizations, which form its expert advisory board. The project includes all necessary teaching guidelines, specific “learning by doing” materials for entrepreneurship training and the required prodPhD online training environment.

Mari4_YARD is an EU funded project that leverages the potential of Internet of Things (IoT), mobile and ubiquitous ICT tools, and robotics to develop user-centric solutions for flexible and modular manufacturing and thus implement a novel connected shipyard. The project has started in December 2020 and will last until 2024.

The concept of TRA VISIONS project is to organize two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2022:The TRA VISIONS 2022 YOUNG RESEARCHER COMPETITION, a young researcher competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers and students in the field of sustainable surface transport.The TRA VISIONS 2022 SENIOR RESEARCHER COMPETITION, a competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

MarLEM (Maritime Logistics Engineering and Management) has its genesis on a very particular identification of specific growing skills gap affecting particular knowledge intensive sectors, in this case Port and Maritime, such as skills mismatch between labour market needs and the output of educational institutions, and a lack of communication and cooperation between education and industry to efficiently align supply and demand.

Drive2theFuture aims to prepare “drivers”, travelers and vehicle operators of the future to accept and use connected, cooperative and automated transport modes and the industry of these technologies to understand and meet their needs and wants.

MATES, a four-year European Union-funded Erasmus+ project, coordinated by the Spanish foundation CETMAR, has recently kicked off its series of maritime-focused workshops in Athens. The Ocean Literacy themed workshop took place on 26 April and was coordinated by Indigo Med. The MATES project consortium is now pleased to announce a further four workshops that will take place across Europe.

BE OPEN aims to create a common understanding on the practical impact of Open Science and to identify and put in place the mechanisms to make it a reality in transport research. Achieving Open Access to publications, making their underlying data FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) and open where possible, and using open and collaborative processes and infrastructure via the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC) will be key factors in making transportation researchers share-reuse-reproduce science and in bringing such a critical sector closer to the society for enabling open innovation and citizen science.

IMPRESSIVE project focuses in developing a universal-relocatable platform for real time management of marine pollution events in the wider area of EU harbors and their vicinities, easy to manipulate and use from the harbor control post. EO monitoring and advanced modeling of these areas are of great interest as the large ship activity, ship traffic and ship refueling, addresses them as highly risky for pollutant spills and waste waters. The product will be consisting of integrated operational services relying on:

The concept of TRA VISIONS project is to organize two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2020:The TRA VISIONS 2020 YOUNG RESEARCHER COMPETITION, an young researcher competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers and students in the field of sustainable surface transport.The TRA VISIONS 2020 SENIOR RESEARCHER COMPETITION, a competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

The Transportation sector employs over 10 million persons in the EU today. At the same time, transport is a social sector that is rapidly developing, changing and being influenced to the maximum extent by the development of automation, electrification and greening of transport, among others, thus facing problems in staffing its several domains with appropriate and qualified personnel. This fact makes the need for changes in training and education content, curricula, tools and methodologies absolutely imperative, incorporating lifelong learning aspects for the professionals in all transports areas.

The concept of this project is to organise two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2018
– A Young researchers’ competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers/students in the field of sustainable surface transport.
– A competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

The concept of this project is to organise two competitions for transport research awards to be announced at the TRA conference in 2016- A student competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers/students in the field of sustainable surface transport.- A competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

The Maritime Europe Strategy Action (MESA – FOSTER WATERBORNE) was launched in order to support the activities of the WATERBORNETP Technology Platform, primarily by updating the Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda, with the aim of strengthening the effectiveness of the research and innovation capacities of the European maritime industry.

The concept of this project was to organise two competitions for transport research awards thet were announced at the TRA conference in 2014:

– A research student competition with the goal of stimulating the interest among young researchers/students in the field of sustainable surface transport.
– A competition for senior researchers in the field of innovative surface transport concepts based on results only from EU-funded projects.

Globalisation is accelerating, and this has an impact on the way we produce, share and use knowledge. Major global challenges such as climate change, energy supply, security of the citizen, etc., highlight the need for effective global S&T cooperation to promote sustainable development. Nowhere is this more important than in the area of Transportation R&D because an efficient and effective transport system is a fundamental prerequisite for economic growth. Furthermore, challenges transportation systems face such as congestion, security, energy efficiency and environmental problems are global concerns.

The concept of VISIONS-OLYMPICS, a Support project targeting call SST.2008.6.3 Encouraging step changes / radical technology changes in the surface transport sector focused on developing innovative maritime products incorporating knowledge, design and manufacturing procedures meeting future market needs and to evaluate their feasibility and analyse the needs for further research and development.

Under CA ACMARE, the ETP WATERBORNE (WB) has completed its initial phase and has established itself as a key adviser to and a strategic partner of the Commission for the generation of consensus views relating to maritime research policy. After three years, the CA ACMARE has developed and published the WB Research Strategy in three key documents: the Vision 2020, the WB Strategic Research Agenda and the WB Implementation Route Map. The Coordination Action CASMARE aims to provide support to the maritime community so that the ETP WB can move forward to its next objective which is the implementation and delivery of the WB Research Strategy.

Nearly all significant developments in the marine/maritime area originate from Europe, a true maritime continent. Consequently, the Marine/Maritime Science and Research Communities are among the world leaders in their respective fields, disciplines and sectors. To maintain its leadership and competitiveness, Europe must take advantage of new market opportunities and address the global challenges by means of focused RDI.

Europe has a strong maritime economy with a high global position. The strength of the European maritime industry is basedon its entrepreneurship and ability to innovate. The European maritime companies can only maintain their position to produceinnovative products if they can attract highly qualified RTD personnel.

The main objective of the IMPROVE project is to develop three new ship generations in an integrated multiple criteria decision making environment by using the advanced design synthesis and analysis techniques at the earliest stage of the design process, which innovatively considers structure, production, operational aspects, performance, and safety criteria on a concurrent basis. The product types focused on this project are new generations of LNG gas carriers and chemical tankers, and an innovative concept of a large Ro-Pax vessel.

The vision of FLAGSHIP is to create the mechanism by which the expertise of all the required actors can be brought together in real time, independently of their location, and given the required information (in the right format, at the right time and incorporating the highest level of knowledge) to  better manage all the questions which confront a ship operator: that includes issues relating to the ship itself and its equipment (e.g. hull monitoring, equipment diagnostics, maintenance planning), its day-to-day operation (e.g. navigation, cargo, rule compliance) as well as emergencies (collision, fire, etc.)

Visions will implement a creative process for the definition and validation of visionary concept outlines for vessels and floating structures (potential products in the next 5 – 15 years).This process is vertically structured in 5 Business Areas: – Mari time Tourism / Leisure – Intermodal Transport (Short Sea Shipping, Inland Shipping, Deep Sea Shipping) – Floating Infrastructures and horizontally in 7 Expertise Fields: – Market / Society Needs – Technical Feasibility / Design – Production – Equipment / Systems – Operation / Security – Infrastructure / Logistics – Safety / Environment and is organised by leading industrial and research Core Partners. The process, which will be repeated 3 times during the proposed NoE duration, is intended to be continue d as a permanent “think tank”. During the Innovation Loops the creative potential and expertise of the leading European Maritime Universities will used, both for idea generation as well as for concept validation. The definition of all concept outlines and R&D gaps will be done on the basis of market and so-ciety scenarios, which will be evaluated and selected as part of the process.The results of the visionary process will be presented to the R&D community and the maritime industry by annual works hops and will be used as input for the definition of R&D strategy of the maritime industry, linked to its actual and future European Advisory Council and Technology platform structures.

In December 2003 the Maritime Industry Forum (MIF) initiated the process for the establishment of an Advisory Council for Waterborne Transport Research in Europe (subsequently named: WATERBORNE TP) functioning as a forum where all the stakeholders would agree on a medium to long term Vision (“Vision 2020”), assess the key challenges for the maritime industry and waterborne transport and operations, would formulate the R&D actions to be fulfilled for meeting these challenges in a Strategic Research Agenda (SRA), and would promote the mobilisation of the necessary resources. The Technology Platform WATERBORNE TP was launched during the MIF-plenary on 25 January 2005 in Bremen, in the presence of Günter Verheugen, Vice President of the European Commission.

CAREMAR focuses on the mechanisms employed within European universities to deliver innovative high quality Research and Technological Development (RTD) and Research Based Education (RBE) in marine technology and related sciences, and the development of communications and collaborations between Universities and Industry.  CAREMAR will help the academic sector to support the needs of industry in both the short term and the medium to long term and to deliver solutions through mobilising the skills and resources of the entire marine technology academic community. In this respect, CAREMAR attempts to bring academia and industry together at a fundamental and strategic level rather than in a specific technological area, so that strategic planning and processes can be examined in a highly original way to ensure that outputs from academia are clearly aligned to industry needs across a broad spectrum of technological areas.

ERASTAR is intended to promote the joint RTD projects in the European shipbuilding industry. This responsibility is presently carried out by two thematic Networks: CEPS (for the process) and PRODIS (for the products) which are at the end of their contractual existence; ERASTAR will replace them. ERASTAR will, as CEPS and PRODIS, support the activities of ERAMAR, the Thematic Network envelope for all European maritime industries.

Focus is upon integrating existing simulation tools in Critical Marine Technologies to maximise interoperability and vessel performance at an overall and ship systems level. A platform will be developed to facilitate the integration and provide the desired functionality of a Virtual Ship System that could support all the life-phases of the ship including design, production, and operation. State of the art methods will be employed from various research areas. These include database meddler architecture, knowledge sharing initiatives, collaborative design and virtual environments. This will require co-ordination, communication mechanisms and applications of existing standards to a novel ship system (ROPAX). The resulting technology platform will provide short to long-term benefits to European ship operators, regulatory bodies and shipbuilders.

The strategic obiective of SAFER EURORO TN is to facilitate the development of a formalised design methodology for safer ships by promoting an integrated approach that  links behaviour prediction through the utilisation of appropriate technical “tools”, risk assessment deriving from risk-based methodologies for assessing ship safety and disparate  design activities and issues. Specific objectives relate to the co-ordination in the development of a series of quantifiable, readily available and evolutionary “tools”, that enable the analysis, interaction and interface of all the organisational, procedural, operational, technological, environmental and human related factors concerning the occurrence of accidental or  extreme events at sea.

The maritime industry has become increasingly reactive to short-term pressures in the market place. With actual survival becoming the focal point of life and decisions, almost no stakeholders in the marine transport industry have energy for long-term thinking. In combination with ever-increasing globalization – or virtualization – the marine industry has developed the urgent need for a European Virtual Maritime Institute that will provide long term focus for strategic policy and business decisions; will provide methodologies for creating medium and long- term scenarios; will derive the demand for novel techniques and technology solutions; will support the rapid and efficient delivery of innovative tools and solutions to equip the European Maritime Sector to meet future challenges, and will provide a formal and legal model for other Virtual Institutes.

The advance proposal presents a thematic Network on an Operation Platform (OP) for Quality Shipping (QS) that:Establishes political and market requirements, identifies projects that may contribute to the OP and recommends, new research defines QS and mechanisms for transferring QS into practice ,provides an operational platform for exploitation of QS elements, and manages a process for dissemination concentrating-bringing in representatives of all the stakeholders.

The CREST project is proposed by WEGEMT: A European Association of 37 universities in 19 countries with expertise in a broad range of marine matters. The events are developed in conjunction with universities, who take an active role in ensuring the quality of the events in terms of their delivery and content. WEGEMT’s Secretariat provides the coordinating function so that local hosts can concentrate on the task of delivering a technically sound event.

The Secretariat also acts on behalf of the WEGEMT Executive Committee that takes ultimate responsibility for the delivery of these events. WEGEMT has been involved in discussion of major strategic issues affecting R&D and training in Europe for marine Industries. Its aim is to update and extend knowledge and its mission stresses the need to deliver collaborative solutions. The events described in this application are ideal vehicle to achieve this mission.