In addition to the entry of MARIN, a number of board changes have taken place recently; new members are Vivienne de Leeuw, CFO of the Port of Rotterdam Authority, Petra de Groene, director of Economy & Sustainability of the Municipality of Rotterdam, Ann O’Brien, secretary of the Executive Board of Erasmus University, Stefan Meeusen, director of NPRC and Jos van Doorn on behalf of MARIN. SmartPort is very pleased; the involvement of its directors and the organizations they represent is one of the strengths of SmartPort.
In addition, the SmartPort team is being strengthened with additional project developers from TNO, Deltares & Marin. With this doubling of manpower, an effective step is taken in the development of pre-competitive research with regard to the port of Rotterdam. All this contributes to the joint goal of SmartPort; demand-driven scientific research and knowledge sharing to accelerate innovation in the port of Rotterdam.
SmartPort’s focus in 2020 will be on the further development of two programs; Smart Shipping & Infrastructure and Electrification & Hydrogen. The two programs contain a large number of ongoing and new investigations aimed at realizing the ambitions that were tightened last year on the Smart Energy & Industry, Smart Logistics and Future Proof Port Infrastructure roadmaps. Investigations that provide the knowledge necessary for the port’s smearing, such as the impact of digitization and automation, energy transition and climate change on goods, services and port infrastructure, for example. Examples include research for booking platforms, smart shipping and truck platooning, self-organizing logistics or smart quays. In addition, research focuses on relevant development of electrification of the industrial cluster and the opportunities for the port of Rotterdam around future-proof energy carriers and circular flows such as green hydrogen and synfuels.
For business and government, this means available knowledge that leads to the improvement of existing business processes and collaborations, the development of new clusters, chains and activities, insight into the required future skills of people within business processes and policies and regulations that make innovations possible.
For more information: Joan van Winsen, joan.van.winsen@smart-port.nl
