Research and innovation are decisive for the competitiveness of the industry. This was underlined again at Waterborne’s recent European Maritime Research Policy Conference in Brussels.
Europe will never be the place with lowest labour cost, thus innovations based on top class results of research projects[ds_preview] are a key to the success of the European maritime industry on the world wide competitive markets. The maritime industry, generating a turnover of 270 billion € all over Europe, spends every year approximately 1.4 bn € for research only (excluding development and prototypes). Those private investments are annually complemented by more than 250 million € national research funding and 50–60 million € funding from the EU-framework programmes.
The EU-programmes, from which the maritime sector has been successful to secure and execute around 150 projects so far with a total funding volume of more than 440 million € during the framework programmes FP5 (start 1999) until FP7 (still ongoing), are of particular importance for large scale pre-competitive research cooperation between industry and research institutes – in particular on the fields of clean shipping, safety and competitiveness, in which step changes in technology and processes are aimed.
Industry collaboration
Prominent and successful examples for such large multi-year projects with budgets of several dozens of million Euros and typical EU funding contributions of 35–45 % are among others:
• »Hercules« (www.ip-hercules.com), a cooperation of the leading engine makers MAN and Wärtsilä with respective specialised scientists and component makers such as ABB, Mahle, Woodward, Aalborg Industries and Sick Maihak as well as shipping majors Maersk, Wallenius and Hapag-Lloyd and also Germanischer Lloyd, with the goal to push the limits of marine engine know-how to develop the future generation of optimally efficient, clean and reliable marine power plants.
• »Streamline« (www.streamline-project.eu), a collaborative research initiative lead by Rolls Royce with Stena, Wilhelmsen, Lloyd’s Register and a number of Europe’s top model basins and universities, to find radically new propulsion concepts delivering a step-change in efficiency.
• »Intership« (www.intership-ip.com) and »Besst« (www.besst.it), two consecutive research consortia including the European cruise ship builders Fincantieri, Aker Yards (now STX Europe) and Meyer Werft but also Flensburger Schiffbaugesellschaft, Navantia, Damen and the Portuguese yard ENVC, with the goal to foster the competitiveness of European shipbuilding, e.g. by drastically reducing building and development cost as well as time to market for new complex ships with new processes, but also optimal integration of optimized ship systems.
• »Flagship« (www.flagship.be), focusing on improvement of safety, environmental friendliness and competitiveness of European maritime transport, under the coordination of the European Community Shipowners’ Association (ECSA), with many first class owners, yards, suppliers and classes on board.
• »Virtue« (www.virtual-basin.org), a collaborative initiative of almost all leading European model basins and leading marine CFD developers and consultants, coordinated by Hamburger Schiffbau-Versuchsanstalt (HSVA), with the vision to use increasing computer power to enable a complete numerical modelling and simulation of ship behaviour, both at full scale and in real sea conditions.
• »Safedor« (www.safedor.org), in which Germanischer Lloyd coordinated impressive 53 partners, among them cruise and shipping majors like Carnival, Royal Caribbean, Color Line, Stena, DFDS, Leif Hoegh and Peter Döhle, the main cruise ship builders and other leading yards, equipment suppliers such as SAM Electronics, Fassmer and Umoe Schat Harding, as well as DNV and many European research facilities and universities, aiming to develop and verify practical procedures for goal based standards and design.
Technology platform Waterborne
The above examples mirror many research priorities defined in the »Waterborne Strategic Research Agenda« (WSRA) and its »Implementation Plan«. This agenda has been defined in consensus by the European maritime stakeholders on the European technology platform Waterborne TP (www.waterborne-tp.org). European technology platforms (ETPs) have been stimulated by the EU Commission since 2003, to provide a framework for stakeholders, led by industry, to define research priorities and action plans on a number of technological areas. Today 36 ETPs are registered across all industries. Waterborne unites representatives from inland and ocean shipping, ports and infrastructure, offshore to shipbuilding, ship systems and equipment, who are sent by industry, research institutes and universities as well as from national and EU government bodies.
On 16 June 2011, Waterborne invited for the 2nd European Maritime Research Policy Conference in Brussels, where more than 200 high level representatives discussed the experiences from the past EU research framework programs as well as the way forward, namely challenges and priorities for the coming years. Patricia Reilly, the Cabinet Member representing Research Commissioner Máire Geoghegan-Quinn on the conference, outlined the EU’s new flagship initiative »building an Innovation Union« and the respective »Common Strategic Framework for Research and Innovation« (CSF) for the years 2015-19, which intends to make EU research programmes more simple, coherent and transparent. Interesting in particular is the EU’s intention to allow more bottom-up project initiatives, to consider more the »close to market« R&D activities and to avoid too much descriptive calls for proposals, a style which had sometimes attracted rather copycats and »buzz word« hunters than the real innovative enterprises and institutes in the past.
More than transportation
Mrs Reilly agreed with industry keynote speakers Sjef van Dooremalen, Chairman of Scheepsbouw Nederland, and the author of this article, who is a former Waterborne Secretary and consultant for CESA. He stated at the conference that the maritime industry cannot be summarized under the aspect of transport only and emphasized the importance of new challenges such as deep sea and arctic oil and gas, offshore wind, tidal and wave energy generation as well as deep sea mining and blue biotech, which are all basing on the fundaments of naval architects’ and marine engineers’ know-how. This view was widely supported by the participants, among them also the Director of EU DG Mobility and Transport, Fotis Karamitsos, and the Head of the Surface Transport Unit of EU DG Research and Innovation, Liam Breslin. Furthermore, the wish for a better bundling of the presently scattered EU research programs with maritime relevance was formulated. Industry was encouraged to advertise the achievements of the previous research programs more visible and to get more involved in shaping the new program structure through the ETPs.
At the end of the conference the awards of the annual European student contest were presented. This contest, called »Visions Olympics«, had been established during the FP6 funded maritime network of excellence, »Visions« (www.maritime-visions.org), and invites students at Europe’s maritime universities in the beginning of each academic year to respond to business challenges (scenarios, briefings) with own concept ideas. Two of the 2011 awards, which were kindly sponsored by IHC Merwede, went to teams of Glasgow’s Strathclyde University, a third one to Universität Rostock.
1st Price:
• University of Strathclyde: Elspeth Keating, Enora Le Squer, David Scott, Gavin Forward
• 550.000 m³ Ultra Large LNG Carrier: Concept for a 450 m x 66 m x 22 m giant LNGC with several modern design elements such as X-bow, air bubble resistance reduction and a special ballast system.
2nd Price:
• University of Strathclyde: Dominic Tasker, Federico Oddone, Gonzalo Azqueta
• River-Sea going Vessel: A short sea shipping concept to overcome transhipment bottlenecks, with RoRo loading technique, retractable POD drives and wheelhouse.
3rd Price:
• Universität Rostock: Katja Hartig
• NoBax: a permanent ballast water system for an existing 2.500 TEU CV design; the water stays on board in all loading conditions, thus a ballast water treatment system is avoided.
The next round of the student contest is already open (www.visions-olympics.eu).
Michael vom Baur
