European Dimension
The impact of SAFER EURORO on the maritime industry of EU has been manifold, but the most significant by far must be the instillation of a strong belief in the maritime industry that safety by design is a feasible proposition, which in turn helps to promote a safety culture that spans the whole profession. Major achievements in the strife for cost-effective safer ships through the activities of SAFER EURORO include:
- The subject of safety has been forced to the forefront of developments, giving way to scientific approaches to assessing safety at the expense of the traditionally governing empiricism. As a result, a clear tendency to move from prescriptive to performance-based approaches to safety is emerging and this is paving the way to drastic evolutionary changes in design, where safety is dealt with as a central issue with serious economic implications rather than a simplistic compliance. The attention surrounding ship safety has scarcely been greater at any other time. Safety is becoming a central issue for the maritime community. The traditional inertia of the marine industry has been overcome by a new stronger resurgence of safety as a key issue that cannot be considered in isolation any longer nor fixed by add-ons, bringing home the long overdue realisation that lack of safety or ineffective approaches to safety can drive shippers out of business.
- The European Commission has actively responded to these challenges by retaining 12 proposals on "Design for Safety" prepared through SAFER EURORO (9 concerning safer Ro-Ro/passenger ships and 3 addressing the safety of high-speed craft, as shown in the Figure A2.3), amounting to 45 M€ of funding. Moreover, through the adoption of an open structure partnership, enabling other areas and others partners to join the TN a true European Research Area on the subject of Safety at Sea has thus been created and is being continuously nurtured and promoted.
- The internationalisation of the TN output, the significant contribution to the regulatory process and the increasing realisation by industry that scientific approaches to dealing with ship safety offer unique opportunities to building and sustaining competitive advantage, have helped in creating a momentum that is now proving to provide the "fuel" and the inspiration towards achieving the goals of the TN.
- More importantly, the effective co-operation between all the major players and stakeholders in the EU maritime industry led to a closer collaboration and to increased trust and respect of each of the partners potential and strengths. EU can only be better for it.