NMU project extension approved

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Monday, 09 August 2010  | 

The NMU application for project extension was approved by the Steering Committee of the North Sea Region Programme. The project will be extended for 18 months - until June 2012.

The background and motivation of the project extension is driven by the intensive dialogue and feedback from stakeholders in the maritime industry and the opportunities and needs identified during the evolution of the project.

Industry representatives and stakeholders have responded very positively to the NMU approach and the concrete pilot courses during the NMU dialogue with stakeholders e.g. within foresight exercises, industry meetings and conferences. The intensive discussion with stakeholders revealed new strategic needs regarding education specifically for the maritime sector in the North Sea region. Namely the maritime industry demands education content in the fields related to offshore, renewables, bunkering and specific management issues.

Furthermore, the stakeholders identified the overarching challenge of the maritime industry in the NSR as improving the image of shipping and careers at sea and shore. In order to raise the competitiveness and attractiveness of the maritime industry in the NSR for young people and skilled personnel, the image building needs to be improved and intensified. Lifelong career prospects in the NSR maritime clusters, modern lifecycle-oriented career paths particularly managing the link between training and university education, and labour mobility within the framework of an ageing work force must all be improved to compete with other industries.

NMU directly addresses these issues in the project extension phase. Accordingly, the aim of the project extension phase is to develop education content and a strategic framework for the creation, transfer, and integration of knowledge for education to enhance the human factor in the maritime industry and to promote the image of maritime industry.
Taking up the needs of stakeholders from the maritime industry in the NSR, the project extension focuses on:

• Module H: Offshore industry and shipping related to renewable
• Module I: Bunkering - operations, management and technology
• Module J: Cruise shipping - Operations, management, strategies
• Module K: Ferries and MoS – Operations, management, strategies
• Module L: Intercultural Management and Corporate Social Responsibility, organisational behaviour
• Module M: Hinterland management related to port management (virtual ports, dry ports etc.)

Furthermore, the following Executive Module Elements – "Maritime Business 2020 – Can you take the lead?", will be developed: 

• Shipping industry and globalisation - Concentration (horizontal/vertical), changes in trade
• Environment 2020 - Upcoming legislation, air and water environmental problems
• Communication and Information Management
• Human Resources 2020 - Health and safety, intercultural issues, technical Innovation
• Ship Lifecycles Management 2020 - Building, Scrapping, Brokering
• Logistics Challenges 2020
• Risk Management 2020 - Insurance
• Regulatory Environment – overarching

Other issues to be addressed during the project extension are the implementation of the NMU entity and secretariat and the NMU market launch and exploitation.

The project extension uses the momentum of the fruitful and productive cooperation of the NMU network and extends the partnership with the University of Hamburg. 

The new partner has special expertise in applying simulation for educational content development, particularly for interactive education tools for maritime transport to be used as a methodology both within education and research. The University of Hamburg also brings specific expertise in accreditation (i.e. accreditation of work experience in university education) which is of high importance in the development of the NMU continuous professional development (CPD) strategy.

Invitation to Dryport Conference 2010

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Saturday, 17 July 2010  | 

On 21 and 22 October 2010, the NMU lead partner Transport Research Institute (TRI) and SEStran invite you to the Dryport Conference 2010 in Edinburgh, Scotland. 

Supported by the project cluster of Dryport, NMU, StratMos, as well as the Napier Edinburgh University, this ground-breaking event will focus on examining the critical role of inland terminals in their relation to ports, encompassing issues of integration, collaboration, competition and associated strategies of hinterland access.

At this extraordinary conference, keynote speakers from around the world will provide insights into intermodal strategies to integrate ports and hinterlands in different economic and social contexts. Industry professionals and academics will share the latest developments in industry and research. Speakers include representatives from Scottish Parliament, national development agencies and ports, as well as dry port managers, rail operators and senior academics.
 
For registration click here

For more information please visit Dryport conference

Invitation to Bremer Schifffahrtskongress 2010

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Thursday, 15 July 2010  | 

On September 3rd and 4th, the NMU partner University of Applied Sciences Bremen invites to the 4th Bremer Shipping Congress. The conference 2010 focuses on “Lifelong Learning – human resources development in the maritime industry”.
The NMU project is involved in the organisation and project partner Thomas Pawlik will be chairing the first day of the conference. Furthermore, the NMU will be present with an exhibition stall, too.

This year again over 100 experts and leaders from the maritime industry, the administration and the universities will come to discuss current issues on the maritime shipping education and training.
The particular importance of LLL for qualification at sea and on land will be discussed in plenary sessions. In three workshops will be reflected the current requirements, implementation scenarios and prospects for success for a lifelong learning from the perspective of companies, of educational institutions, as well as of employees.
The University of Applied Sciences Bremen would like to offer a forum for discussion and exchange to all German training locations. The conference will also serve as platform for dialogue with the shipping industry, policies and nautical associations. Important partners such as the Association of German ship owners, the universities Bremerhafen, Flensburg, and Wismar are integrated in the programme committee.

For details please download the programme. Please note: Conference language is German.
For registration please click here.
For more information visit www.bremer-schifffahrtskongress.de.

NMU example for transnational networking

Written by Matthias Hahn  |  Monday, 12 July 2010  | 

On June 8, 2010 the German NMU partner Matthias Hahn (University of Applied Sciences Bremen) took part at the licentiate thesis seminar of Cecilia Österman at Chalmers University in Gothenburg. Her doctoral thesis is on "Ergonomics: An uncharted route to improved overall systems performance in shipping". The NMU partners Maria Anne Wagtmann (University of Southern Denmark) as moderator and Eric Fridell (Swedish Environmental Institute) were present, too.

In her thesis, Cecilia Österman argues that despite of high levels of technological progress and systems efficiency in shipping, the area of occupational ergonomics is yet uncharted. With systems growing in complexity, the likelihood of inefficient operations as well as occupational accidents is probable to grow. In the discussion following Cecilia Österman’s presentation of her thesis, the question was raised among others why such an important issue does not attract more attention. In his concluding statement Matthias Hahn emphasized, that despite of undisputable obstacles to tackle the issue, it really had to be done anyway. And that after all there was absolutely nothing wrong about doing the right thing - an estimation that received unanimous approval among the seminar participants.

Later the same day Matthias Hahn and Maria Anne Wagtmann met with representatives of the Human Resources Management from University of Gothenburg. The NMU partners presented their work and got into an intensive discussion exchanging ideas on maritime research with Gill Widell, Staffan Gran and other experts.

View to the global NMU objective to build up a strong transnational network of universities in the North Sea Region the trip is an excellent example for the different project activities.

The thesis is available at:
Department of Shipping and Marine Technology
Division of Ship Work Environment and Safety
CHALMERS UNIVERSITY OF TECHNOLOGY
412 96 Göteborg, Sweden
Telephone +46(0)31 772 10 00
www.chalmers.se.
ISSN 1652-9189

Interreg IVB Conference: active participation of NMU

Written by Gesine Stück  |  Thursday, 24 June 2010  | 

At the Annual conference 2010 the NMU project partners Yakov Boglev, Gordon Wilmsmeier, Philippa Lenz, Indah Lengkong, Matthias Hahn, and Susanne Neumann participated actively in the maritime management and resources, innovation and climate cafés. This participative approach called “Clusters Café” included all stakeholders and gave room to the NMU partners for discussions with potential stakeholders from maritime industry.
In total, the conference at Stavanger, Norway, was a good occasion for exchanging ideas between Interreg projects and searching for potential cluster project partners.




















The NMU delegates contributed to the discussions about                                Promotion of the NMU’s objectives on the conference
the Interreg Secretariat’s project clustering idea.                                           exhibition. Yakov Boglev (TRI Napier Edinburgh) and
Matthias Hahn (University of Applied Sciences Bremen).                                   Indah Lekong (Jacobs University Bremen).