Recent developments in technology have led the maritime industry towards automating a variety of onboard and ashore processes. As technology leads the path towards development, the gap in skills is widening. Personnel’s technical skills have been pushed aside by the need for soft skills, such as leadership, resilience and communication.
Bearing the above into consideration human capital has become an even more integral part in maintaining high operational standards and productivity in shipping.
Maritime history is highly correlated with interpersonal skills both for onboard as well as onshore procedures. Soft skills are much valued mainly because they are found to be associated with productivity and profitability. Furthermore, soft skills in comparison to hard skills are more challenging to develop, that is because soft skills are not the byproduct of expertise or knowledge, they are simply intensified by them.
Many pieces of research have focused on the issue of soft skills and have identified that the need for non-technical skills will accelerate in the course of the coming decade (Deloitte,2017)
The need to further examine the issue of soft skills is imperative to bridge the needs of the maritime world requirements in terms of Human Resources.
In view of the above, educational organizations worldwide are making efforts to meet the needs of the sector by promoting cultural awareness and training candidates on critical thinking, creativity,problem solving and communication skills.
The iSOLMET project aims towards identifying and enhancing soft skills in terms of quality in order to bridge the gap between experience and the theoretical framework adopted by university students.
In this context iSOL-MET aims to:
- Bridge the gap between shipping world requirements in respect to human resources soft skills and competences, through developing innovative educational material based on the case study methodology
- Bridge the needs of maritime professionals for ongoing career opportunities even after completing their sea service on board
- Bridge the experience gap of maritime universities’ students in respect to the on-board operations and the shipping practices.
- Exchange best practices and cultural awareness on maritime education and shipping issues.
The project addresses the needs of the students for obtaining the required skills for entering the shipping market and provides to educators new educational tools. Furthermore, addresses the needs of the shipping industry for qualified personnel.