Project description
Charting a sustainable course for European maritime shipping
Carbon-neutral shipping is a large part of the EU’s climate targets, but the investment required for the industry to transition to alternative maritime fuels (AMF) is not being met, mainly due to market uncertainty. As such, the companies in this sector still prefer relatively inexpensive alternatives to adopting future-proof, sustainable solutions such as ammonia or methanol. With support from the Marie Sklodowska-Curie Actions programme, the SET-SAILS project plans to fill this gap through research into ways in which the adoption of AMF can be fostered by competition policies and industrial leadership within the EU. The goal is to provide policymakers with actionable recommendations on sustainability agreements and public-private funding in order to de-risk investments.
Objective
The Sustainable Energy Transition in Shipping through Agreements, Industrial Leadership and Subsidies (SET-SAILS) project explores how competition and industrial policy can contribute to the market uptake of a future-proof alternative maritime fuel (AMF).
To meet global and EU climate targets, the EU shipping industry is called upon to phase out conventional fossil fuels in favour of AMF, which encompass technologies with a different degree of market-readiness (liq.natural gas, biofuels, methanol, ammonia, etc.). So far, AMF account for a small fraction of total fuel demand and the high level of uncertainty on which AMF will become the next market standard undermines investments. Absent a comprehensive strategy for the AMF market uptake, the EU only prescribes a gradual reduction in carbon intensity of ships, while leaving the task of identifying the ‘winning’ AMF up to market forces. Hence, shipping companies and ports have an incentive in choosing less costly, short-term options, which diverts resources from AMFs that are more economically efficient and sustainable in the long term.
By combining legal and economic research methodologies in the field of competition policy and transport policy, SET-SAILS provides the first extensive theoretical and qualitative analysis of AMF market dynamics and regulators’ practice within the EU. International workshops and a stakeholder survey will provide further evidence that will be translated into recommendations to policy-makers. A detailed map of the market ecosystem and regulatory framework will be drawn for each AMF type, while possible sustainability agreements between port and shipping operators will be assessed, as well as public-private funding to de-risk investments in AMF.
SET-SAILS will be developed under the supervision of Prof.Thierry Vanelslander, a leading authority in shipping and port economics, and will benefit from the full support of the Department of Transport and Regional Economics of Antwerp University.
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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2000 Antwerpen
Belgium
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