This proposal describes a series of activities that will support the successful delivery of the TRA conference in Dublin in 2024. A consortium has been assembled that addresses all the key requirements of the call: • They represent the key transport modes with at least 2 partners active in road, rail, waterborne, aviation and cross-modal. • The partners are all active in European research and have the reach to promote the conference across Europe. • The partners have a long history of delivering high quality researcher competitions where Europe’s research leaders are recognised. The partners will work with key stakeholders to ensure the conference themes support European policies. The proposal also has the full support of the Irish Minister for Transport and this will ensure the full support of relevant Irish agencies. The partners will work together to deliver a conference that builds on the success of previous TRA conferences and provide a forum that will allow the key actors in the transport sector come together to develop solutions for society’s needs.

D-NAVIO (meaning Digital-Ship) is an advanced digital twin project that aims to develop a next-generation digital “clone of ships” through an Intelligent Digital Twin (IDT) system. Integrating explainable Artificial Intelligence (XAI) and self-healing technologies, D-NAVIO focuses on large, complex vessels. The project aligns with the global mission to enhance maritime safety, protect property, improve environmental efficiency, and facilitate the transition to autonomous ships by incorporating interdisciplinary knowledge from automation, aviation, and the space industry. D-NAVIO’s “System-of-Systems” approach enables real-time monitoring and analytics through two pilot use cases: 1) COLUMBIA’s large passenger/cruise ship, and 2) DANAOS Shipping’s large cargo/container ship. These pilots will identify missing requirements and propose advanced methods for forecasting, preventing, and managing faults, failures, and hazards throughout a ship’s operational phase. Through its multi-pillar approach, D-NAVIO goes beyond the state-of-the-art to offer specific and tangible, cutting-edge innovations: 1) D-NAVIO XDTLib: An Extensible Digital Twins Library for Waterborne Systems, 2) D-NAVIO HYDRA: A Hybrid and Adaptive Risk Assessment Framework, 3) D-NAVIO Failures Reporting System: A “memory of failures” system, 4) D-NAVIO Cybersecurity Assessment Toolkit, 5) DYNAMO: Dynamic Cloning for Maritime Applications, and 6) Analysis of Reliability Regimes for critical systems. D-NAVIO’s innovative solutions, grounded in interdisciplinary collaboration and input from shipyards, shipbuilders, system designers, maritime engineers, equipment manufacturers, IT experts, operators, class societies, and regulators, will establish a smart platform that revolutionizes risk assessment and hazard management. This will not only enhance safety during design, construction, and sea trials but will also ensure operational resilience and cost-effectiveness throughout the life cycle of large ships.

Skillsea will foster cooperation on a European level between the industry, education and training providers and authorities to develop a strategy to make the education and training for maritime professionals future proof, adaptable and attractive, to provide maritime professionals with the correct skills for the labour market and to ensure sustainability of the European maritime industry. Besides development of the strategy, the project will support implementation of the strategy and products developed during and after the lifetime of the project. Thereby, Skillsea will provide a concrete, sustainable solution for the qualitative and quantitave mismatch between demand for and supply of labour, will increase labour mobility within the sector (horizontal, vertical and geographical) and enhance attractiveness of the sector. Skillsea follows the approach of skills needs identification (current, medium term and long term), design and delivery of VET, the development of strategy as well as stakeholder mobilisation and awareness raising as sustainable implementation.

<< Background >>USWE was launched to update the descriptions of the VET profiles in the Shipbuilding Sector registered in ESCO .The purpose was to update the most demanded VET profiles to include the emerging skills request by European shipyards. USWE also wanted to adapt the sectoral VET profiles to the demands of industry 4.0 and to the environmental regulations.For that purposes, USWE had given relevance to the transversal and green skills so necessary for the exploitation of industry 4.0 technologies.<< Objectives >>The general objective was to provide evidence of skill needs in the Shipbuilding Sector. It was divided into smaller operative objectives:O1: Gather and interpret evidence of skills needs.O2: Analyse trends and challenges impacting the sector.O3: Assess the skills gaps and mismatches .O4: Analyse the impact of such skills needs on growth and employment.O5: Analyse major trends affecting interrelated sectors to capture potential spill overs.O6: Identify needs in terms of training provision.<< Implementation >>USWE was executed through:Analyse the skills management situation in the sector.Forecast trends and challenges.Describe the production process to identify phases, activities and skills.Gather information from stakeholders to validate the proposals of USWE.Adopt some EU Tools as supportive models for our work.Analyse the European Shipyards’ and Online Agencies' job offers.Write the description of the 25 most demanded VET Profiles.Write recommendations for policy makers and stakeholders.<< Results >>We consider that among the number of results achieved by USWE, the following ones are the most relevant:R1: Analysis of the State of the Art regarding sectoral skills management.R2: Identification of drivers of change and the impact of Industry 4.0R3: Adoption of a Sectoral Taxonomy of 50 VET ProfilesR4: Descriptions of 25 VET Profiles for European Shipyards, for Training Providers and for VET studentsR5: Recommendations for stakeholders and policymakers and new European projects proposal

To maintain world leadership in complex, value-added and highly specialised vessels European shipbuilders must develop tailor-made innovative concepts that are efficient to design and build. Project NAVAIS proposed solution is a platform-based modular product family approach supported by the 3DEXPERIENCE integrated business platform. By sharing components and production across a platform of vessels, higher efficiency in vessel design and flexibility in production networks is achieved. NAVAIS uses system engineering approaches to develop the principles, procedures and a re-use component library for modular design and production and will apply these to develop two platform-based product families: passenger/road ferries and multi-use workboats. For each product family a demonstrator will be developed to TRL9 “digital twin”-level, validated and assessed on low impact environmental performance e.g. discharges to air and water, underwater radiated noise and cost-benefit aspects. The demonstrators are a 400 passengers/120 cars E-ferry and a multi-use workboat equipped for aquaculture activities. A major aspect of the platform-based modular approach is the change in value chain management. The current class approval procedure of engineered-to-order designs will be replaced by a procedure where pre-engineered product modules are approved by class, stored in a re-use library and applied in new vessel modular designs. This transfer from an engineered-to-order business model to an assemble-to-order business model will allow shorter process lead-times, constant quality, reduced design and production costs and better integration of the SME supply chain. Exploitation of results is expected at the end of the project duration. NAVAIS partnership contains 16 partners from 5 EU and 1 associated countries and includes technology providers, technology integrators and technology users. The project duration is 4 years and the required funding is € 6,6 MIO.