SaferSEA Study Visit in Cork
After Cadiz (ES) in September 2025, Sines and Lisbon (PT) in April 2026, and before Brest (FR) in October 2026, the project partners gathered in Cork (IE) on May 20 & 21, 2026, for the 3rd SaferSEA Study Visit, organised by AxisBIC.
This visit follows on from an initial meeting in Cork in May 2025, as part of the European Maritime Day. In addition to their participation in the event as exhibitors, the partners had taken advantage of their presence in Ireland’s second largest city to visit the facilities of the National Maritime College of Ireland, as well as the multi-purpose research vessel RV Tom Crean, operated by the Marine Institute.
This second gathering thus allowed us to continue the Study Visit begun last year, and to organise a collective work session to prepare a SaferSEA workshop that will be held in October 2026.
MaREI
We started off with a visit to MaREI, the Science Foundation Ireland Research Centre for Energy, Climate and Marine, coordinated by the Sustainability Institute at University College Cork. With 220+ multidisciplinary researchers and 100+ industry partners, the work conducted at MaREI contributes to informing policymakers, supporting industry and fostering societal engagement.
For this visit, we were welcomed by Dr. Ross O’Connell, Post-doctoral researcher at MaREI and Operation Coordinator of the Lir National Ocean Test Facility. Dr. O’Connell presented recent research outcomes and projects conducted at MaREI, related to energy transition and offshore renewable energy.
We also had the opportunity to discover the Lir National Ocean Test Facility, presented by Dr. Milad Zabihi and Dr. Venkata Sesha Sricharan Vaddiraju. This facility includes wave tanks that can replicate real ocean conditions, in order to test marine innovations related to wave and tidal energy production.
Thank you again to MaREI, the University College Cork and our hosts for the visit and presentations.
Port of Cork
We stayed in the town of Ringaskiddy, to meet with representatives from Port of Cork within the ferry terminal. The meeting began with an overview of Environmental & Energy Management at Port of Cork company.
Port of Cork currently holds multiple facilities at multiple sites along the River Lee, from the City Quays and Tivoli docks, down to the cities of Ringaskiddy and Cobh. With 9.8 million tonnes throughput and 282,000 twenty-foot equivalent unit (TEU, a general unit of cargo capacity) handled in 2024, Cork is now the second largest port in Ireland after Dublin. With large international companies such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson or Yara located nearby, Port of Cork is indeed a key entry point and gateway for pharma, IT or chemicals.
In order to comply with environmental regulations, Port of Cork has a Safety, Health, Environment, Energy & Quality Policy in place where they commit to “prevent pollution, manage emissions […] and support conservation awareness in the interest of minimising [their] impact on climate change.”
After this introduction, we explored the site from a crane, which allowed us to have a 360-degree view of the facilities:
Thanks again to our hosts at Port of Cork for the presentation and for the visit.
Partner Meeting/Work session
On the second day, we took advantage of this in-person meeting to work together on the preparation of a SaferSEA workshop. On October 7, 2026, during the Sea Tech Week® in Brest, the partners will indeed hold a pitch session dedicated to highlighting innovations and innovators identified throughout the project. More on this soon!
Thanks again to the teams at MaREI and Port of Cork for the warm welcome and thank you also to our partner AxisBIC for the organisation of these 2 days!
