The maritime world witnessed a convergence of industry leaders, forward-thinkers, and government bodies during the much-anticipated London International Shipping Week 2023 (LISW23).
The LISW23 was made up of over 350 events taking place all over London City including a number of specific maritime locations. Some of the important topics covered at the events were maritime decarbonisation, autonomy, cyber security, Artificial Intelligence, Skills requirements and Equality and Diversity.
Over the week, the MarRI-UK team attended a wide range of events to expand their knowledge and interacted with attendees from all aspects of the maritime industry. These included:
- Clean Maritime Day by Department for Transport
- DNV Maritime Forecast to 2050 launch event by DNV
- Exploring shipping’s role in decarbonising UK energy and industry by ABP
- Great British Green Tugs: How Do We Get There? by Harland&Wolff, BPA and British Tugowners Association
- IMPA London 2023
- International Ship owning and Shipmanagement Summit (ISSS)
- LISW Headline Conference
- Emerging themes and opportunities for the marine market – Lloyds
- Maritime UK AI Summit: Harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence on the high seas
- Navigating the Future: Opportunities of A.I. Based Solutions by Dryad Global
- The Shipping Debate: Decarbonisation, future skills and challenges: Is shipping ready for it all? by Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers and ITIC
- UK Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and its application in shipping business models by Norton Rose Fulbright
- Wind Propulsion: Barriers, Drivers and Perceptions organised by International Windship Association
MarRI-UK Event – Unleashing the Potential of Maritime Innovation and Research through Collaboration
MarRI-UK held our showcase event, “Unleashing the Potential of Maritime Innovation and Research through Collaboration” at the QEII Centre in Westminster on the morning of Thursday 14th September.
The event kicked off with a keynote speech from Petra Wilkinson CBE, Director of Maritime from the DfT, who emphasised the importance of collaboration between industry and academia to drive the UK’s maritime sector forward through innovation and research.
This was followed by an overview of the refreshed MarRI-UK strategy by Simon Reid, Director of MarRI-UK, and the way in which the organisation can bring together people across the maritime industry, from the large industry players to the smaller SMEs developing specialised products, to work alongside academia in ground breaking research projects to the benefit of the whole maritime industry in the UK.
Prior to the event, MarRI-UK had been working on a study examining ‘the UK’s Academia Capacity and Capability for Shipbuilding” for the National Shipbuilding Office (NSO). The report is being collated by researchers from across the academic members of MarRI-UK. Rod Paterson, Deputy Director of National Shipbuilding Office, gave a speech about the importance of Academia in delivering the refreshed National Shipbuilding Strategy. An overview of the findings of the study was presented by Prof. Stephen Turnock, Head of School of Engineering, University of Southampton. The final detailed report will be available by the middle of October.
Thereafter, Wenjuan Wang, MarRI-UK Programme Manager, introduced a selection of case studies from the 23 projects that were funded by the DfT through three funding calls. These all provided an overview of the projects and showcased the outcomes and impacts of these research initiatives.
The case studies presented were:
- Re-Charge LOHC@SEA – Martin Nurnburg, Director, O.S. Energy
- Maritime Hydrogen Highway – George Skinner, Project Manager, Port of London Authority & Grace Rawnsley, Director of Sustainability and Net Zero Transition, Port of London Authority
- Advanced Zero Emission Ammonia Engines for Future Marine Applications – Prof. Alasdair Cairns, University of Nottingham
- Shipping and Port Interfaces in New Era (SPINE) – Nick Lambert, Chairman, MSE International
- Wavemaster Zero C (WMZC) – Enora Pichon, Innovation Manager, Bibby Marine
The final session was an interesting question and panel discussion, with questions flowing in from the audience on the UK’s position on decarbonisation journey to a cleaner future, process for academia to convert research to business, to preferred fuels to be used for the decarbonisation of shipping vessels.
Following the event, the MarRI-UK team has received excellent feedback from both industry and academia about the event:
“It was a pleasure to attend the event that MarRI-UK ran during London International Shipping Week (LISW) ‘Unleashing the potential of maritime research and innovation through collaboration’ at the Queen Elizabeth Centre II on the 14th September. Events such as this are a key vehicle to spark innovation, to promote the UK maritime sector internationally and to drive growth in our economy. I look forward to continuing to work with the researchers, academics, industry experts, and organisations involved in delivering the remaining R&D projects that the Department for Transport has sponsored ” – Petra Wilkinson CBE, Director of Maritime, Department for Transport
“London International Shipping Week hosted the maritime world with hundreds of events across London, bringing people together to reflect, celebrate success and confront the many challenges facing the Sector. MarRI-UK is proud of our members’ valuable contributions across many events and our own headline event showcased the valuable outcomes we deliver.” – Simon Reid, Director, MarRI-UK
“Found the session really useful, interesting to hear from different experts and their approaches within their own areas of expertise. Useful UK Gov dept insights too. Great work by all at MarRI-UK for previous work and pulling this session together.” – Nigel Quinn, CEO Bibby Marine Ltd