LJMU - LJMU is a public teaching, research and enterprise institute of about 25,000 students and staff members with a long history dating back to 1825. LJMU has 4 Faculties, where 19 research Centres/Institutes are operating. Research and scholarship is at the heart of the University and integral to everything it does. Since 2004, LJMU has successfully participated in over 100 EU funded projects, ranging in value up to approximately €20m. LJMU has managed 35 European funded projects under FP6 and completed 23 European projects under FP7, including the coordination of several multimillion pound projects.  In addition, LJMU has secured funding for 8 projects via Horizon 2020. As such, it has dedicated financial staff with many years’ experience of handling and managing international project budgets and expenditure. The Department of Maritime and Mechanical Engineering within the Faculty of Engineering and Technology is multifaceted containing approximately 50 academic staff, 700 undergraduate and postgraduate taught students, and 80 PhD research students. The LOOM Research Institute within the faculty has been actively engaged in the risk assessment of large engineering systems or processes for more than 20 years. LOOM has completed more than 60 doctoral and postdoctoral research projects supported by both internal and external grants. It is equipped with a wide range of risk modelling and decision-making tools such as Intelligent Decision System. LOOM has recently been equipped with a new advanced maritime simulation suite with an investment of £5m. LOOM also has a 3600 ship bridge simulator of £4m investment for research and training purposes. LOOM is in partnership with the UK’s Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC) to develop novel ideas into commercial reality, with particular reference to large maritime engineering systems. LOOM also has strong international training links, with postgraduates and research staff visiting from around the world.  

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AALTO - AALTO is a Finnish multidisciplinary university in the fields of science and technology, economics, architecture, art, and design. It was founded in 2010 by merging three Finnish universities. AALTO is the main and the largest University of Technology in Finland. The Marine Technology Research Unit is part of the Department of Mechanical Engineering within AALTO’s School of Engineering. The Department has 21 professors and about 250 employees. The Unit led by Prof. Kujala provides degree programmes and carries out research in the areas of ship design and ship structures, ship hydrodynamics, marine engineering, marine-traffic safety, and Arctic marine technology. The Unit employs 5 professors, 2 lecturers and 10 research scientists, together with 15 doctoral and 4 postdoctoral members. AALTO also has its own Aalto Ice Tank, which is a multipurpose basin that  can be used for model scale testing in various ice conditions and in open water. The tank is 40 m wide and 40 m long with a depth of 2.8 m. The facility has a rail-bound bridge and underneath the towing carriage. On one side a 40 m wide segmented wedge type wave maker is installed, which can generate regular and irregular waves.

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IST- IST is the Engineering School of the University of Lisbon, which is committed to education and research in various areas of engineering and technology. It has approximately 1,000 academic staff members, about 11,000 undergraduate and master students and 1,000 PhD students. CENTEC is a Research Unit of IST participating in this project, and has long experience in participating in research projects. CENTEC has around 100 research personnel, amongst whom there 40 PhD. students. CENTEC is organised into four groups: Marine Environment, Marine Dynamics and Hydrodynamics, Marine Structures and Safety & Logistics of Maritime Transportation. CENTEC with its designated experimental labs deals with aspects of the safety and risk analysis of large maritime engineering systems, both from a methodological point of view, as well as its application. CENTEC have been involved in about 100 European projects and 50 national projects.

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LUH - Founded in 1831, LUH is a study and work place for around 24,000 students, over 1,100 academic employees, and more than 300 professors. LUH has a focus on interdisciplinary teaching, research and cooperation projects, of which over 110 are EU projects within FP7 (12 MCA; 10 ERC Grants), and to date more than 20 projects in Horizon 2020 (5 MCSA). Within the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Geodetic Science, the Institute for Computer Science in Civil Engineering is focused on the area of risk analysis and uncertainty quantification. The institute comprises 2 professorial positions, 3 postdoctoral researchers, 6 PhD students, and 2 postdoctoral guest researchers. The institute hosts the world-leading general purpose software package COSSAN for uncertainty management. For large-scale analyses, a high performance computing cluster is just being implemented. Currently, the institute is supported by the state of Lower Saxony and Volkswagen AG with over €800,000 (for infrastructure) for uncertainty quantification. The institute’s experience with research training initiatives includes a directorship/PI role in the UK Research Council-funded Centre for Doctoral Training in Risk & Uncertainty (£21m), and partnerships through two EU FP7 projects (PLENOSE, 2014-2018; ITEAM, 2016-2019). The team has trained over 25 PhD students, and has conducted many thematic training events.

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UoP - The School of Marine Science and Engineering at UoP is multifaceted and is the largest of its kind in Europe. The School contains approximately 100 academic staff, 1,800 undergraduate and postgraduate taught students, and 120 MPhil/PhD research students. It has interests which span civil and coastal engineering, geography, marine biology, marine science, marine studies, and mechanical and marine engineering. The School has an annual external research income of around £5m. The School has a modern structural laboratory for conducting large and small scale structure tests, a material laboratory for material characterisation analysis, a COAST lab for carrying out fatigue tests of full scale structural panels/members under wave loadings, a structural workshop, and a well-equipped computer Lab. The outcome of the research has led to the development and drafting of a number of codes of practice, and other authoritative guidance for the design and assessment of coastal and offshore structures and marine structural systems. The International Office has a team of international advisors who can provide information about life at the university, and about making preparations before visiting researchers arrive.

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MU - The Faculty of Engineering at MU was established in 1989, in response to Thailand’s need for engineers as a newly industrialised country. Over the past two decades, the Faculty has shown its excellence in teaching and research in various fields of engineering. The Faculty has a full range of state-of-the-art laboratories for teaching, joint research projects and training purposes. The Faculty also offers international programmes in selected fields such as Civil and Environmental Engineering. The Faculty is well known for its community contributions and educational services provided for the community and the country as a whole. With its philosophy and strong commitment to excel in engineering fields, the Faculty of Engineering has become a leading engineering faculty in Thailand and the Asia Pacific Region. By upholding MU’s philosophy and policies to be the “Wisdom of the Land”, the Faculty of Engineering at MU has committed itself to provide the answer to all engineering problems of the nation, to serve both society and community with ethics and responsibility. 

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UKM - UKM was established in 1970 based on the quest for a national university. The idea of its establishment dated back to 1923, and has led to the development of a Sponsoring Committee led by Dr. Mohd Rashdan Haji Baba. In 1977, UKM moved to its present premises, which form the main campus in Bangi. UKM operates seven research stations, including the Marine Research Centre. Based on a strong foundation of 30 years into research, UKM was awarded the status of a Malaysian Research University in 2006 by the Ministry of Higher Education of Malaysia. It is ranked 149th in the world by QS World University Rankings in 2015-16 in Engineering and Technology, and also among the 100 best universities established within the last 50 years in the world. The Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment has 20 established research groups, one of which is CEM. CEM’s research interests are in the area of computational and experimental fatigue and fracture mechanics, corrosion, design, and optimisation. Parallel finite element modelling for crack propagation incorporating elasto-visco-plastic features of a material is also a key research area of the research group.  

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UTM   - Established 1972, UTM is an innovation-led and graduate-focused research university. It is located both in Kuala Lumpur, the capital city of Malaysia and Johor Bahru, the southern city in Iskandar Malaysia, which is a vibrant economic corridor in the south of Peninsular Malaysia. UTM has 25,172 students including 13,780 postgraduates, and 3,654 academic members. The Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FME), was established in 1975. The Faculty consists of ten departments offering various academic programmes and services. The Faculty also houses 10 centres and laboratories of excellence, 16 teaching laboratories, and outstanding computing facilities to support academic programmes, as well as research, development, and consultancy activities. It has 169 academic staff, 13 of whom are professors. Since 2014, 66 research grants totalling RM 7m (€1.5m) have been awarded to the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering by the Government of Malaysia, through the Fundamental Research Grant Scheme. The grants generated 146 ISI-, 158 Scopus- and 15 non-indexed publications.

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WHUT - WHUT is a leading Chinese university constructed in priority by the “State 211 Project”, particularly in the disciplines such as Naval Architecture, Marine Engineering and Transportation Engineering. WHUT was named among the world’s top 400 universities according to Times Higher Education’s World University Rankings 2014. The WTS Center, as a national engineering research hub, has a long history of delivering research and training programmes in the design and operation of maritime and engineering systems, including inland waterway vessels. WTS Center has an annual external research income of €4m. WTS Center is well equipped with traffic simulation and testing facilities, such as maritime simulation platforms, ship bridge simulator, engine room simulator, and a Key Laboratory for structural tests/analysis, as well as various software tools for both research and training purposes. It has strong connections with many industrial and regulatory organisations such as China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) and China Maritime Safety Administration (MSA).

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