Transitions and revolutions; preparing for future challenges of the maritime industry

A transition to new business solutions and technologies is changing the maritime industry: bunkering options, digitization, unmanned – and perhaps even autonomous - ships that will sail the oceans in the future are just a few examples of coming breakthroughs and on top of that, a pandemic is disrupting supply chains and current practices. Resilience will be key to the survival of companies in the future. For example, many new fuels, by a recent count over 40 options, are considered to achieve the IMO CO₂ reduction targets for 2050.  Ships ordered today will likely be required to adapt to the best-suited fuel in their lifetime. Yet, this choice is unclear at this point as both fueling infrastructure and propulsion options are still under development or even in a research stage only. Similar situations consist of automation and COVID-19 has shown that worldwide disruptions are something to be ready for in the future as well. 

This requires new approaches to design, operations and decision making for all actors in the maritime industry. Furthermore, our education of the future members of this industry should also be reconsidered in this light and the advancements and knowledge gained in science need to find their way into the classrooms. For this special issue, we seek to collect a set of papers that represent these advancements in dealing with these transitions and revolutions as well as introduce advancements in education that prepare the future marine workforce for this task. Any research that can contribute to this challenge is welcome. 

Particular interests are given to the topics in the following list: 

1. New Economic/Design/Logistic theory in this field
2. The potential of unmanned and autonomous shipping
3. Challenges or comparisons of zero-emission fuels. 
4. New skills for employees in the maritime sector (new fuels, information technology, …)
5. New methods/theories for teaching Maritime Economics and theory
6. Cross-discipline studies of the mentioned challenges
7. Policy research and recommendations to support a transition
8. Blue Careers, support the transition of people into the maritime sector and keeping them in the sector

Submission box is closed. 

Guest Editors

Dr.ir. Jeroen Pruijn  TU Delft J.F.J.Pruyn@tudelft.nl	Alessio Tei  University of Genova alessio.tei@unige.it