Key Recommendations

Corollary to the key findings, the study puts forward a number of recommendations, particularly in the area of seafarer training and development well as attraction and retention, including:

A collective responsibility to prepare seagoing professionals for the future

• Key stakeholders such as regulatory bodies, shipowners/operators/managers and training academies should carefully assess and target the skill deficits in digitalisation and decarbonisation in the current decade to ensure seafarers have the necessary skills in place when they are needed in the future. Training could be prioritised on LNG and batteries as these fuel types are likely to be the most prevalent ‘alternative option’ in the current decade, and as the number of vessels in operations and on orders having LNG and battery or battery-hybrid has significantly grown in the last few years.
• The industry should use the future seafarer training model where maritime training academies focus on delivering basic/generalised shipboard skills while ship operators should be focusing on delivering fuel-specific and vessel-specific training.

Opportunity to employ modern training methods to address augmented training and development

• The industry is well placed to embrace modern training methods to fill the skills deficit and enhance seafarers’ development in the current decade. Although not all training will be suited to a single medium, the industry should be encouraged to effectively use a range of training options to enable training to be accessed universally, promptly and comprehensively. This may result in the blending of training courses to have both a digital and in-person component to make best use of the available training resources and thereby be more accessible to seafarers. There is also scope to further include technologies such as VR/AR in enhancing seafarer training.
• Shipowners/operators/managers and training academies must ensure that the best-placed seafarers based on position onboard, experience and availability are trained at the right time to ensure continuity of operations and knowledge and skills transfer. This may result in Senior Officers being trained on new technologies and fuels first to enable an effective mentoring and on-the-job training environment onboard. The junior crew could have their onboard training supplemented by harnessing the available technology assisted training (e.g., virtual reality, simulators etc.).
• Future STCW courses could introduce updated fire-fighting techniques and methods into the curriculum to combat the new types of fire, posed by adoption of new and emerging fuels.
• It is recommended that a renewed focus on the development of a seafarer’s soft skills be made by maritime training organisations and by employers of seafarers.

Providing a pathway for sustainable career progression for seagoing professionals, vital for talent attraction and retention

• Shipowners/operators/managers should closely manage their seafarer’s progression opportunities from both an attraction-retention point of view and an operational capability perspective. The career development opportunities that digitalisation and decarbonisation present should be leveraged to retain and attract people to a seafaring job.
• Shipowners/operators/managers should harness seafarers’ unique and desirable skill sets and provide them with opportunities for complementary shore-based roles such as vessel control and monitoring facilities (shore control centers), which will likely become more prevalent later in the current decade and beyond.