BIMCO is supporting a study conducted by the World Maritime University for the European Maritime Safety Agency to identify potential safety issues related to COVID-19 and the risks that may contribute to maritime accidents and incidents.
The study needs factual information on experiences, and opinions of maritime professionals who served in various capacities onboard or ashore during the COVID-19 period from 2019 to 2021.
The World Maritime University is seeking potential interview participants among seafarers (deck and engine) and maritime company personnel (Designated Person Ashore, Technical Manager, Human Resources Manager, etc.).
The study aims to provide insight and figures on the COVID-19 potential impact on shipping safety, including the seafarers’ well-being and ship operations.
The study will identify changes to the “normal operations” for ships and companies due to the COVID-19 outbreak and assess if these changes to the “normal operations” for ships and companies may have generated possible safety issues or emerging risks that did not appear in the pre-pandemic period.
It will also determine how stakeholders tackled these issues during the pandemic.
As per the standard practice, the research methodology has been rigorously reviewed and approved by the World Maritime University Research Ethics Committee.
The interview is expected to last between 45 minutes to one hour. All voluntary participants have the right to stop the interview or withdraw from the research at any time, and personal data will be immediately deleted upon request.
Anonymized research data will be archived on a secure drive linked to a World Maritime University email address. All the data will be deleted after the completion of the research.
