Safety at sea

Working at sea remains one of the world’s most dangerous occupations, with an estimated 100,000 fishing fatalities and 100 large ships going missing around the world every year.

Climate change, consumer habits and an increasing demand for ocean space has forced the maritime industry to work in ever more extreme environments.

Through our funding, how do we better protect people and property of the ocean from harm?

Our Foresight Review on Ocean Safety highlighted that the Foundation's efforts should focus on:

• Public awareness and policy: lead communication efforts to increase public awareness, develop ocean citizens, embed safety and sustainability principles, influence the financing mechanisms that will enable the new ocean economy and build on our maritime heritage
• Evidence insight and ocean data: stimulate sharing of ocean data and transparency about ocean-related activities, impacts and dependencies. Build actionable insight on all aspects of ocean safety, supporting others to share their data, and developing new tools, for example an ocean safety index
• Decent work at sea: build a body of evidence and insight supporting the safety and welfare of those who work in the ocean economy; support others to ensure high standards of welfare and safety, actively protecting workers and vulnerable groups; and supporting equity, diversity and inclusion in a just transition.
• Infrastructure and systems: support knowledge transfer across sectoral and geographic boundaries and catalyse cooperation and action in areas where new approaches and thought leadership is needed. Build on its investments in areas such as autonomy and robotics, data centric engineering, decarbonisation and complex systems and accelerate new research and development in emerging areas such as multi use infrastructures, nature based engineering, marine spatial planning and full life cycle assessments.  
• Education and skills: build the evidence needed to understand industrial and geographical skills requirement in the future ocean economy; develop new curricula, new methodologies and new skillsets requiring a wide range of interdisciplinary integration; and lead a global conversation about the safety skills needed in the new ocean economy, especially in disadvantaged or informal work settings.
• Ocean Foresight: monitor and forecast new trends, including trade and supply chain effects, support technology and skills road mapping, and highlight the safety risks and opportunities throughout dynamic and interconnected emerging ocean industries.