Irish Marine and Maritime Resilience and Digitalisation – Scoping Study
Funded by: Marine Institute, Research & Innovation Call 2025
Duration: 18 months
Lead Organisation: Advanta Blue Solutions
Project Coordinator: Dr Md Salauddin
About the Project
IMaR-D explores how digital technologies, governance and cyber-resilience can strengthen Ireland’s marine and maritime sectors. The project focuses on ports, shipping, offshore renewable energy, aquaculture and environmental monitoring, assessing both the opportunities created by digitalisation and the associated challenges in cybersecurity, interoperability, governance and institutional capacity.
The project will examine Irish, European and international best practice, including advanced maritime digital systems, governance approaches and cyber-resilience frameworks. It will also engage directly with Irish stakeholders, including industry, port authorities, researchers and public agencies, to identify practical gaps, challenges and opportunities in Ireland’s current maritime digital landscape.
A major output of IMaR-D will be a Maritime Resilience and Digital Readiness Assessment Framework tailored to Ireland and the Irish Sea. The framework will include a structured maturity model, key performance indicators and a self-assessment toolkit for evaluating digital resilience across ports, shipping and logistics operations. The project will also develop an implementation roadmap covering governance, investment priorities, capacity building and continuous improvement.
Key Areas
- Maritime digitalisation and digital readiness
- Digital governance and interoperability
- Cyber-resilience of critical maritime infrastructure
- Maritime digital twins, IoT and sensor networks
- Climate adaptation and operational resilience
- Stakeholder engagement and policy development
- Research, innovation and secure digital solutions
IMaR-D also examines how research institutions and innovation actors can support secure-by-design digital tools, smart systems and data-sharing platforms while maintaining cybersecurity, data protection and regulatory compliance.