Waterborne Technology Platform, EC sign partnership on zero-emission transport

The European Commission and the Waterborne Technology Platform signed a Memorandum of Understand (MoU) for a Co-Programmed Partnership under the framework of Horizon Europe.

The partnership aims to accelerate the transformation of waterborne transport to eliminate all harmful environmental emissions through innovative technologies and operations.

By 2030, the objective is to develop and demonstrate deployable zero-emission solutions which are applicable for all main ship types and services, to enable the achievement of zero-emission waterborne transport by 2050.

The European Commission will invest up to EUR 530 million in actions within the scope of the partnership.

The private sector will provide input and advice to the European Commission to help identify priorities of research and innovation activities and to identify topics for inclusion in the Horizon Europe Work Programmes within the scope of the Co-programmed European Partnership’s activities.

Furthermore, the partners other than the union plan to invest up to EUR 3.3 billion for the period 2021 – 2030 in research, innovation, and other activities in the area of the Co-programmed European Partnership.

“The partnership will not only foster and accelerate the transition to an environmental-friendly mode of transport, in line with the European Green Deal ambitions, but it will also stimulate the green recovery of the waterborne sector,” Chairman of the Waterborne Technology Platform, Henk Prins, said.

“We look forward to the applications for the first round of calls for proposals, as well as mapping the state-of-play and monitoring the progress towards reaching our objectives.”

As a member of the Waterborne Technical Platform, Maersk said it was looking forward to working closely with the rest of the maritime cluster and the European Commission to accelerate the deployment of zero-emission technologies. 

“Given the decarbonization task at hand, we welcome the unprecedented focus on maritime and the resources earmarked to shipping projects, with the investment of up to 3.8 billion EUR in research and innovation. We cannot do this alone,” Simon Bergulf Director of Regulatory Affairs at A.P. Moller – Maersk, explains.

Waterborne is an industry-oriented technology platform set up to establish a continuous dialogue between all waterborne stakeholders, such as classification societies, shipbuilders, shipowners, equipment manufacturers, infrastructure and service providers, universities, research institutes, and EU Institutions.