The first Kotka Maritime Research Conference (Komarec) focusing on sustainable development of maritime operations was successfully concluded. The event took place on November 8-9, 2023, at the new Event Centre Satama in Kotka. The planning of the conference began early in the spring, and the implementation involved the expertise of researchers from the Merikotka Research Network, representatives of stakeholders, and professionals from Satama’s event management team.

One of the central goals defined for Komarec was to bring together researchers, authorities, companies, and interest groups – all the stakeholders whose collaboration is essential for the sustainable development of maritime transport and shipping – to share knowledge and discuss possible ways to promote more sustainable maritime practices. Approximately 80 participants attended the conference, representing a comprehensive range of target audiences. Of the attendees, 57% were from research and educational organizations, while the remaining 43% represented stakeholder organizations. In total, 14 research and educational organizations and 21 stakeholder organizations were represented. In line with the international nature of both maritime operation and scientific research, the conference language was English, and international participants were also sought. Despite the majority of the multi-cultural audience represented various Finnish organizations, conference attendees also came from Estonia, Poland, and Canada.

Cross-Sectoral Encounters

The conference was opened by the Development Director of the City of Kotka, Toni Vanhala, who welcomed both the Komarec event and its participants to Kotka. The keynote speaker of the first day came all the way from Canada: Assistant Professor Floris Goerlandt from Dalhousie University shared insights into ongoing work on sustainable maritime development in Canada with the conference attendees. The second day of the conference was opened by the Executive Secretary of the Baltic Marine Environment Protection Commission (HELCOM), Rüdiger Strempel, who provided an overview of HELCOM’s work in developing environmentally sustainable maritime activities.

In the researchers’ presentations, the spectrum of perspectives to more sustainable maritime transport was pleasantly multidisciplinary and extensive, covering environmental issues, the development of technical tools, optimization of operations, human factors, and legislation. The presentations were divided into four thematic sessions. The themes included the environmental impacts of maritime transport, energy-efficient winter navigation, “smart” – i.e. automated and artificial intelligence-driven – maritime traffic and ports, as well as the significance of risk assessment and learning in developing maritime safety.

The session chairs moderating the thematic sessions represented crucial stakeholders in maritime affairs in Finland. The chairs included Eero Hokkanen from the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Mirka Laurila-Pant from the Finnish Transport and Communications Agency Traficom, Helena Orädd from the Finnish Transport Infrastructure Agency, Mats Björkendahl from the Finnish Shipowners’ Association, Mia Hytti from the Baltic Sea Action Group, Päivi Brunou from the Mechanical Engineering and Metals Industry Standardization in Finland, and Ilkka Rytkölä from Meyer Turku Ltd. The perspective of maritime education was represented by Olli-Pekka Brunila, Director of Education in Logistics and Maritime at South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences.

Communication, Anticipation, and Systemic Understanding as Enablers of Sustainable Green Transition

Through interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral dialogue, the Komarec conference aimed to map and increase awareness of research related to the sustainability and sustainable development of maritime transport. We wanted to generate discussions about the societal impacts of the presented research questions and results and collectively identify future knowledge needs.

Discussions held between the conference presentations emphasized the importance of collaboration and communication at national, Baltic Sea region, EU, and IMO levels, as well as on the cross-sectoral level among researchers, business, authorities, and policymakers. Together, we also observed how terms can sometimes have very different meanings in different contexts. This highlighted the importance of context-specific clarification of terms as part of sustainability discussions.

Also in the maritime sector, the Green Transition is discussed a lot. Research can help develop solutions and pathways for implementing the transition in a sustainable manner: ethically and justly, minimizing economic losses. Maritime transport itself contributes to achieving UN Sustainable Development Goals by serving social well-being, enabling the movement of people and goods, and promoting positive economic development. However, for the activity to be considered sustainable, it should succeed without compromising the state of the environment or jeopardizing human safety and other societal values, such as equality and human rights. This is a global challenge across all sectors, and addressing it requires bringing together different perspectives and identifying the connections and collaboration needs between them.

In the Komarec conference, the need and importance of a shared situational picture emerged clearly, particularly in the context of the increasing use of artificial intelligence and automation in maritime transport. Various artificial intelligence solutions can help reduce the negative environmental impacts of maritime transport and improve operational cost-effectiveness. However, beyond technical development, it is essential to proactively consider the risks associated with the introduction of new AI innovations, and how legislation, liability distribution, and infrastructure should be developed to enable sustainable evolution of maritime automatization. One crucial question, especially with the increasing use of artificial intelligence, is the well-being of operational personnel and the identification of new skill requirements: how these can be ensured as part of the development.

Looking Toward the Future of Komarec

The shared vision of the Merikotka research network is to promote comprehensive sustainable development in maritime transport through scientific collaboration and societal dialogue. The Komarec conference supports this goal by providing a platform for dialogue, visibility for research, and an opportunity to identify future research and development needs. The interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral format prompted researchers to carefully consider how to present their research topics and findings in a way that is understandable to all, and based on our feedback survey, this was perceived as beneficial by the researchers themselves. The active participation of stakeholders ensured that researchers’ work was scrutinized also from the perspective of its societal significance. Such expansion of perspective is particularly valuable for researchers in the early stages of their careers.

Based on the positive feedback received, we can state that the first Komarec event was successful. We also received several good suggestions for improvement for future editions. It was encouraging to see that there is a perceived need for the event. Building on this experience, we dare to promise that the conference will be developed into a regularly occurring, increasingly international, and possibly larger event that provides meaningful content and engagement for all stakeholders interested in sustainable development in maritime transport while maintaining a focus on high-quality research.

 

Text and photos: Annukka Lehikoinen

Kotka Maritime Research Conference aims to:

1) map and increase awareness of the ongoing research contributing to sustainable development of maritime practices.
2) discuss about the potential societal implications of the presented studies.
3) identify current and future knowledge needs.

We invite abstracts on research-driven results, ideas, and solutions that have potential to contribute to sustainable development of maritime operations in the changing world.

Here, sustainable operation means such way of operating that serves the human well-being by enabling moving of people and goods, and advancing economics, while not degrading the environment, nor compromising the human safety or equality. Any angle of entry into this definition is welcome but must be opened in the abstract.

The abstracts can contribute for example to the following questions:

Digitalization, AI, automation: Increased digitalization, machine learning and artificial intelligence in maritime operations and design has brought new opportunities in terms of achieving sustainability goals, but also additional risks and challenges e.g. related to cybersecurity, regulations and policies, work-life wellbeing, and educational needs. How to take the opportunities and avoid or control the risks?

Socio-political challenges: How have maritime practices evolved in the face of the global COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions, and under the impact of global economic crisis? How do these affect the achievement of the sustainability goals? What could be done to ensure the sustainable development despite the challenges?

Changing traffic and transportation flows: The changing world changes maritime traffic parameters and freights. How does this affect maritime risks and resilience, and further on the sustainability of the operation? What tools or measures can support risk management or improve resilience, to ensure the sustainability?

Alternative fuels and energy sources, air emissions: National and international agreements and new regulatory instruments create pressure to substantially decrease greenhouse gas emissions from maritime operations. Do they work as intended? What is the potential of new alternative fuels and other energy sources here? How sustainable solutions are they?

Other maritime emissions: How do the other emission types from maritime operations prevent the sector from achieving the sustainability criteria? How could these challenges be solved? What cross- and joint impacts with other blue economy sectors, as well as intersectoral management measures and strategies, should be considered?

Consequences of and adaptation to climate change: How do the consequences of climate change, such as more frequent extreme weathers or changes in the sea ice, affect the sustainability of maritime operation? How to adapt?

Instructions

Submit your abstract no later than 7 May 2023 via email to merikotka@merikotka.fi. NB! ABSTRACT SUBMISSION EXTENDED TO 21 MAY.

Title of the message should be: Abstract submission KOMAREC.

Please, download and use this MS Word -template for the formulation of your abstract and attach the file to the email.

Based on the abstracts received, the organizing committee will form logical thematic sessions of oral presentations (8-10 minutes + discussion) and an interactive poster session. On 20 June, the authors will be notified whether their contributions have been selected as an oral or a poster presentation. The authors whose abstracts are accepted as oral presentations will be asked to provide an extended abstract of two pages no later than 15 September.

We’ll request from the authors a permission to publish the abstracts on the conference website as open access. From our side this does not limit the authors’ use of the material for other purposes.

Questions

For questions or additional information, please contact merikotka@merikotka.fi

The organizer reserves right to make changes to the plans.

Kotka Maritime Research Association is seeking a qualified and motivated

RESEARCHER/CODER

to automate the translation of expert-elicited causal mental maps to quantitative probabilistic Bayesian Networks (BN) as part of the Academy of Finland-funded project GYROSCOPE. The generated code will be used in a participatory foresight modelling process to help maritime stakeholders better understand their situational picture and identify key risk or resilience factors.

Key tasks are

• Reviewing and potentially updating the current translation algorithm.
• Constructing the R or Python code needed to generate conditional probability tables, following the agreed logic.

Qualifications

The ideal applicant will be someone who:

• can contribute to the algorithm design and independently produce the code (R or Python).
• is familiar with the concepts of conditional probability distributions and discrete variables.
• has previous knowledge of Bayesian inference and Bayesian networks.
• can contribute to the writing of a scientific manuscript concerning the method.

The position is available from 1 September 2023 to 29 February 2024 (6 months), with the possibility of part-time work. Salary for this position will consist of a task-specific component and a personal salary component based on the applicant’s qualifications and experience, as per the contract terms.

Application

Submit your application no later than 21 May 2023 by email to Executive Director Anna Kiiski (anna.kiiski@merikotka.fi) with “Gyroscope coder” as the subject line. The application should consist of a short (max 1 page) motivation letter with a statement of the desired salary level, and a CV.

Inquiries

Please address any inquiries to Research Director Annukka Lehikoinen.
Email: annukka.lehikoinen@merikotka.fi
Phone: +358 50 5519288

Read full job advetisement here (PDF)

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Mr. Lei Du defended his doctoral dissertation on 1 October 2021 at Aalto University, in the field of marine technology. The opponent was Associate Professor Rafał Szłapczyński from the Gdansk University of Technology, Poland. Assistant professor Osiris Valdez Banda – a member of the Kotka Maritime Research Centre’s management group – was the supervisor of the doctoral thesis.

The thesis, titled as Maritime Traffic Risk Analysis in the Northern Baltic Sea from AIS data, consists of five scientific articles and a summary section. It reviews and develops framework and methodology of maritime traffic risk analysis to support decision-making for the prevention of and response to accidents, particularly ship collisions.

The focus of the thesis is in advancing the latest methodology of utilizing non-accident critical events, in other words near misses, detected from AIS data, as the basis to risk assessments. AIS refers to Automatic Identification Systems tracking the ship movements, being commonly used by vessel traffic service (VTS) centres worldwide.

”Through this work, we can identify the waters where dangerous encounters happened frequently and provide evidence for the identified causes of serious ship encounters,” Mr. Du says.

He continues by telling the results can help developing preventive measures to reduce the ship collision probability, or to minimize the negative consequences of ship collisions by allocating more reponse resources to the most risky areas. The expected end-users of the results include the authorities responsible for maritime traffic planning and management, as well as pollution prevention and response agencies.

The thesis summary can be downloaded from the Aaltodoc publication archive.

 

Written by: Annukka Lehikoinen