D2.4 Inventory of specific opportunities for technology transfer and innovation between Arctic science community and industry

This report provides the results of the interaction between the Arctic science community and the maritime Arctic industries in identifying opportunities for technology transfer and innovation. An inventory is provided combining science-industry priorities with technology available, along with the technology readiness level and bottlenecks for finalization of the transfer.

A regular science-industry dialog was established in the project making use of dedicated meetings and the regular interaction with the industry liaison panel. A set of topics relevant for the industrial sectors has been identified with sectors including: shipping coating, ice risk assessment, route planning, comply and anticipate regulations within the polar code, ship design and pollution risk management and impact mitigation. Different science initiative contributing to these major areas have been defined and including further research needs (e.g., experimental testing in real conditions, validation of the results and field work, further engagement with stakeholders, development of policy and certification tools, etc.).

A list of research areas, research needs and available scientific/commercial tools – including their assessed technology readiness level – has been compiled for a comprehensive inventory of technology transfer opportunities.

In the short-medium term, important research areas include development on: standard ship interfaces based on data distribution standards, automatic instruments for environmental data acquisition, high bandwidth communications and cloud services for near-real-time data transfer, storage, and analyses, and artificial intelligence methods for autonomous classification of sea ice
properties.

In the long-term, promising research and management tools to support sustainable industrial development in the Arctic are identified and further illustrated in detail. These include: methods for integrated ecosystem assessment, new generation end-to-end ecosystem models, operational maps for same risk areas identification, technologies and methods for pollution detection and mitigation, and sea-ice forecast services for short term (e.g., navigation) and long term (e.g., route planning) operations.