Thames Freeport - Britain's Trading Future

[ 67 ] logistics, supply chain management, procurement and trade and port management. Geographically, its maritime scope engages complex multifaceted business and policy issues located between interfluves and ocean trenches. The University’s expertise in maritime economics incorporates studies relating to market concentration and competitiveness between ports and maritime organisations at meso- and microeconomic scales. It includes systems modelling, optimisation and design, big data, knowledge and information management and financial and economic impacts. In maritime policy, it has experts in maritime law, regulation and governance. That expertise is centred around interests which include environmental regulation, legal and regulatory processes, human resource issues, social responsibility, community and stakeholder impacts. In port sustainability management, decades of dedicated research at Plymouth Business School has enabled decision makers to deal with the conflicts between economic development, social benefits, as well as the environmental protection of a port. This has led to the creation of a holistic decision framework structure, which comprehensively covers the most crucial sustainability matters and helps managers evaluate the sustainability performance of ports. Initially developed with Harbour Commissioners in Falmouth, Cornwall, the work has been expanded in recent years to include oil ports in China, and this has consolidated the holistic decision framework from both methodological and comparative analysis perspectives. The influence of the University’s research in this area is being seen globally as well as locally. One particular area of growth has been in Korea, where academics have contributed to new plans around the growth of container facilities in the country and how that can be achieved sustainably. They have also explored how such ports would cope in the face of natural disasters and other states of emergency such as cyber attacks. At the start of the new decade, the University has emerged as one of the world’s leading proponents of research into the cyber threats facing the global shipping industry. As a National Security Strategy Tier-1 threat, a maritime cyber attack can cost companies millions of pounds. And with the world depending ever more on maritime operations, the University is researching maritime cyber threats, as few organisations have the capability, connections and facilities to do so. The University’s Maritime Cyber Threats Research Group is closely aligned to the Maritime and Logistics, Business and Policy Group. It brings together specialists in cyber security, maritime economics, navigation and psychology to fully assess the threats facing the industry globally. However, through cutting edge facilities including its £3.2 million Cyber-SHIP Lab, and collaborative projects such as Cyber MAR, it is also developing ways to manage them effectively. The Cyber-SHIP Lab, supported by funding from Research England, is a unique, hardware-based, configurable research, software development and training platform. Combining maritime technology with leading edge cyber security research and practice, researchers — working with industry partners — aim to enhance understanding of maritime systems’ cyber vulnerabilities and deliver world-leading cyber resilience knowledge, tools and training. Wave tank that can generate short and long-crested waves in combination with currents at any relative direction The Hub’s vision is to provide research leadership to connect academia, industry, policy and public stakeholders, inspiring innovation and maximising societal value in offshore wind, wave and tidal energy