Maritime Cluster in North Jutland and Denmark

Many drivers change the way that maritime transportation firms behave vis-à-vis their impact to the environment: global regulation, market, technology improvements and business self-regulation. This PhD project takes inspiration by these ongoing changes. Therein, the purpose is to understand how companies in North Jutland can benefit from the blue/green technological change in the maritime sector. To achieve so, this project was set as collaboration between Aalborg University and Maritime Center for Operations (MARCOD).

North Jutland is a region with an historical presence of ship-yards, research and development firms of maritime equipment. During the last century some of these firms provided employment to thousands of qualified staff. In the vein of changing trends of the maritime sector, there is an expectation about which benefits will bring the “greening/ blueing” maritime sector drivers to the firms depending on shipping. The region’s maritime firms strategic interest is how to better position themselves in a global context that requires shipping to be carried at lower prices and with environmental protection. An examination of the North Jutland case, can be insightful for the rest of the Danish Maritime cluster.

The PhD project is composed by three work packages (WP):
1. Drivers of maritime regulation: Greening and blueing maritime trends. Regulation is a broad term that nowadays is not restricted to State driven laws. It also implies voluntary and market driven self-regulation (e.g. Clean Shipping Index and similar). In order to propose new services and products, it is important to be aware of the regulatory changes affecting the maritime sector. This WP will pay attention to present and forthcoming regulation.

2. Technology transition. A special emphasis will be to the required services and competences for specific types of clean tech.

3. Maritime cluster responses: Some companies in North Jutland can be relevant examples on how to take lessons from the technological change in the maritime sector. This WP will pick some extreme cases. In this way, other companies in the cluster can drain some lessons for the future.