SURSHIP- Strategic European Research Cooperation on Maritime Safety
The comprehensive and coordinated cooperation in SURSHIP strengthens the European maritime industry’s ability and competitiveness. It creates an improved know how of a more generic holistic ship safety approach which influences all stakeholders: ship owners, ship builders, suppliers and national Administrations and International Maritime Organization (IMO).
The SURSHIP cooperation was initiated by the Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems VINNOVA) in 2006. SURSHIP was also initiated as one of the ERA-NET Transport Action Groups.
The important focus in SURSHIP is on R&D in the field of ships’ capability to remain afloat in an almost upright position, regardless of the kind of damage scenario, in particular be it a collision, grounding, a fire or a power failure. The basic idea for this design objective is the explicit design criteria to retard call for orderly abandonment and evacuation as late as possible after the occurrence of an incident in order to minimise the personal risk of each one involved. To define the constructional needs of a ship design that has the means to survive severe incidents like collision, grounding or a big fire onboard has always been one of the most important objectives for maritime research.