ONGOING PROJECTS

The Blue Economy has the potential to deliver growth and jobs in the coming years, but an adequate supply of blue skills is mandatory. As can be observed in the Commission’s Annual Growth Survey, there is a growing skills gap affecting particular knowledge-intensive sectors, with particular relevance for:

• Skills mismatch between labor market needs and the output of educational institutions;

• A lack of communication and cooperation between education and industry to efficiently align supply and demand.

In reply to the Blue Economy Call from the European Commission`s Blue Careers program that aims to accelerate the implementation of the EU Maritime Policy and the sustainable development of the blue economy across Europe, arises MarLEM (Maritime Logistics Engineering and Management) a project to develop a Joint Master course in Maritime Logistics Engineering and Management which:

• Aims to fill the existing gaps and needs of higher education;

• Intents to progress beyond the state-of-the-art on the Maritime Education and Training.

MarLEM will launch a cooperation network based on a Knowledge Triangle concept. The Industry will articulate with Academia and with Authorities to establish a better framework for skills development, continuous improvement, and alignment with identified needs.

MarLEM has in its genesis the concept of innovative education and training centered in the methodologies of Project-Based Learning and Work-Based Learning:

• On the 1st year, each student will be guided on the selection of a project to be developed on the 2nd year;

• On the 2nd year, students will learn by working on the selected project and applying it to the port-maritime reality.

Expected results and impacts:

• Clarification of skills gap, and respective proper answer;

• Entrepreneurial capacity and employability;

• Transfer and exploitation of knowledge;

• Communication, pooling/sharing of knowledge and new synergies between Industries, Universities, and Authorities at the EU level.

Relevance to EU policy:

• Reducing / eliminating the gap between skills;

• Potential to be widely adopted by Maritime Universities in Europe;

• Gives a better fulfillment of industry needs and will grant the availability of the “real maritime world” environment to the students.

Since there is in Europe 70 000 km of coastline and more than 1200 commercial seaports across 22 Member States, with growing movement of cargo and passengers, the interest on MarLEM and specifically on the replication of the Master Course and adapting the Industry/University collaboration platform models well the Knowledge Triangle Industry/University/Authorities shows great potential. We strongly believe in MarLEM’s trans-nationality and in its potential to be widely adopted by Maritime Universities in Europe.