The main research approach is a vulnerability and resilience approach, which will address the generic, overall process. The focus of the vulnerability analysis is the short- and long-term survivability of the systems or the systems mission, i.e. the system’s resilience. This implies a wider set of threats and consequences than a risk analysis, and a wider scope that covers the adequacy of mitigating and stabilizing resources and the time-factor up to when the system re-establishes stability. The research tasks taken up by this competence development project will address survivability aspects of maritime logistics from different angles, but all will aim in sum to establish efficient and robust or resilient maritime logistics services. This means being able to handle accidents or service disruption in a way that minimizes disruption time, and being able to re-establish the quality of the maritime logistics services provided.

As this is a multi-disciplinary approach, specific approaches and methods will be chosen within each of the research tasks or topics, in order to comply with and support the overall research objectives and approach.

The six research topics will act as the knowledge platform of the KMB, supported through the PhD fellows. Through the multi-disciplinary focus areas of the research tasks, a broad platform will be established in order to study the principal topic of this KMB: ‘Managing vulnerability, risk and resilience in maritime logistics chains’. Initially, this platform will provide an overview of the current state of the art as input to the industrial case studies. Subsequently, the process comprising the industry cases, building on the knowledge platform, and supported by the knowledge sharing meeting places of workshops, seminars and conferences, will act as the competence-development structure of the project.