Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710

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Case Studies on Transport Policy

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Innovation and maritime transport: A systematic review T

b a,b,⁎
Theodora Koukaki , Alessio Tei
a
Department of Economics and Business, University of Genoa, Italy
b
School of Engineering, Newcastle University, UK

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Innovation is often defined as the introduction of a new concept aiming at improving a certain situation, either
Innovation process using new solutions or a novel combination of already existing resources. In the shipping industry, innovation is
Shipping innovation a determining factor of shipping evolution and company success. Despite the important role that innovation
Port technology plays for the shipping industry, academic research is quite fragmented as it usually focuses on specific cases with
Shipping advancements
few attempts for generalisation. Thus, despite a growing interest from scholars, the shipping industry is still often
defined as conservative and it is often not easy to highlight innovative trends and common methodologies to
investigate innovation in the maritime sector. The current study applies a systematic review approach in order to
discuss main trends in current innovation studies as well as for understanding if published researches are aligned
with the industry plans. The research finds out that industry is often leading the research agenda while scholars
are often more focused in discussing the innovation implementation phase rather than looking for novel ap-
plications or developments.

1. Introduction existing resources brought about by changes in technology and/or organi-

The maritime sector has been often considered conservative (e.g.
Acciaro et al., 2018; Stopford, 2009) when it comes to deploying new
technologies or developing new market solutions. This assumption is
often underlined by related policy papers [e.g. the port industry ranked
as one of lesser innovative sectors in the research promoted by Inter-
national Transport Forum on innovation (ITF, 2010)] and academic
researches (e.g. Acciaro et al., 2014). Despite this, some authors (e.g.
Acciaro et al., 2018; Arduino et al., 2013) argue that innovation in the
port and shipping sectors is developing fast but there is an issue be-
tween attempts to innovate and capability of achieving the intended
goals. The presence of such frictions might affect the perspective in
judging the capability of the sector on achieving a certain innovation
level. Moreover, the use of the term innovation can be often mis-
interpreted, in terms of both analytical approach (e.g. technological vs
cost) and expected “innovative element” (e.g. can a reorganisation be
considered an innovation?).
In modern economics a first definition of innovation can be traced
back to the beginning of the 20th century and the work of economist
and political scientist J.A. Schumpeter. In relation to shipping
Thanopoulou et al. (2010) stated that innovation includes both orga-
nizational and technological factors and in accordance with Schump-
eter’s work is defined as ‘the new uses and/or combinations of already
zation’. Furthermore, Schumpeter (1949) describes innovation as an
effort that produces gain by reducing costs or increasing incomes, high-
lighting that innovation is a historic and irreversible change in the way of
doing things. Similar definitions can be found in the literature (e.g.
Arduino et al., 2013). Despite a general understanding on what in-
novation could be, several authors (e.g. Jenssen and Randoy, 2002)
translate this concept in different ways – depending on their field of
studies (e.g. engineering, business, social studies, economics) and the
different markets – producing a variety of specific definitions of “in-
novation”. On the top of this issue, it is important to underline that
sometime there is confusion on the difference between innovation and
innovation process, with the former one being the innovative element
and the latter one being the process (including effects and con-
sequences) leading to the application of the innovation (e.g. Galanakis,
2006). Thus, often innovation studies are focused not on the former but
on the latter, without clearly stating it.
These various definitions that are found in the literature are proof
that innovation is in fact a complex concept and can be viewed dif-
ferently depending on the background and the point of view of each
researcher. In relation to the maritime industry, while innovation
should be considered a fundamental element for successfully compete
in the market – as demonstrated by the cases of slow steaming, mega-
ships, and recently by the possible introduction of autonomous vessels

⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: alessio.tei@unige.it (A. Tei).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cstp.2020.07.009
Received 10 October 2018; Received in revised form 10 April 2020; Accepted 15 July 2020
Available online 21 July 2020
2213-624X/ © 2020 World Conference on Transport Research Society. Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
and blockchain systems – most of the research in this direction is
fragmented as it usually focuses on specific case studies or in assessing
specific innovation cases. Only a few contributions considered multiple
innovations (e.g. Arduino et al., 2013; Vanelslander et al., 2016) or
their effects in changing a specific maritime service (e.g. Lau et al.,
2013) but even in these cases the research is normally focused in
comparing different case studies, without an overall consideration on
how innovation could be defined within the maritime industry as whole
and where the research is mainly headed to.
Thus, while some research areas are often focusing on technical
advancements (e.g. use of AIS data, ship design, carbon emission, au-
tomation) others are more focused in organisational (e.g. routings, new
financial solutions) “innovations” with recent studies discussing po-
tential future macro-trends (e.g. blockchain). Moreover, research pa-
pers are quite often focused in case studies that apply innovations only
for specific market sub-sectors (e.g. Ferrari et al. (2015) and Cariou
(2011) focused on slow steaming in container shipping as an innovative
strategic behaviour) not considering similar applications of the same
innovation in other shipping markets (e.g. Bausch et al. (1998) dis-
cussed the application of slow steaming for optimizing bulk related
services). At the best of our knowledge, there is no attempt to under-
stand the main trends of the entire maritime industry, causing a scat-
tered discussion arena that sometime is incapable of developing solu-
tions for the whole maritime industry.
Thus, in an attempt of providing an improved framework for
studying innovation in the maritime industry, this paper will perform a
systematic review aiming at understanding main trends in the innova-
tion studies performed in the maritime sector as whole. The proposed
research will then contribute to current knowledge in three different
ways. Developing a systematic literature review will possibly define
how innovation is normally studied in the shipping sector and what
researchers consider as “innovation”. Moreover, through a comparison
of different sources (i.e. Scopus for the scientific papers and Tradewinds
for industry related news) it will be assessed if academic research is
normally in line with industry perspectives or if different trends can be
highlighted. Eventually, an overall maritime innovation framework will
be developed, in order to better understand which of the innovation
typologies are attracting most of the interest and if there is a path that
affects the research on innovations in the maritime industry.
The paper is structured as follows. After this brief introduction,
Section 2 discussed the methodological approach, including some pre-
liminary statistics on the paper included in this review. Section 3 is
dedicated to the discussion of the findings and the main aspects that can
be extrapolated be the analysis. Section 4 addresses the concluding
remarks and the potential insights for both researchers and practi-
tioners.
2. Methodological approach
The research has been developed through a collection of different
papers, available on the database Scopus until the spring 2018. Further
readings have been also included in the analysis but only with the aim
of increasing the robustness of the literature review. Since the database
Scopus (2018) only includes academic research, Tradewinds (2018) has
been also used to collect news on industry and market announcements,
with the aim of better understanding if industry and academia are
aligned in the definition and study of innovation in shipping. Trade-
winds is a specialised shipping online newspaper commonly used by
relevant maritime companies and consultants and represents one of the
main information sources on the maritime industry1.
1 3
While Scopus database is generally accepted as the main provider of sci-
entific literature, authors acknowledge the presence of several alternative
providers of industry related news (e.g. Lloyds List). Despite this, TradeWinds is
considered a reliable source of information for market trends by both the
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
Concerning the methodological strategy, according to several pa-
pers (e.g. Calatayud et al., 2016; Gligor & Holcomb, 2012; Denyer &
Tranfield, 2009) an optimal approach to assess and compare different
sources is through a systematic literature review method. This approach
allows the researchers to gather the needed information collecting,
comparing, and assessing several sources through an unbiased ap-
proach. The systematic literature review is normally based on 5 main
steps (Denyer & Tranfield, 2009):
a) Problem definition and formulation
b) Literature research
c) Literature assessment
d) Analysis and Interpretation
e) Discussion of results
At the end of the analysis the review will allow to summarize main
assessed literature in a comprehensive and unbiased manner, devel-
oping a structured aggregation of definitions and knowledge otherwise
contained in a disperse series of studies that will allow us to fill the
current gap in the assessment of innovation in shipping.
2.1. Problem definition and formulation
As mentioned above the aim of the paper is threefold and it focuses
on understanding how innovation is studied and defined in the mar-
itime industry from both an academic and industry perspective.
In order to achieve these goals, the identification of keywords
capable of defining the assessed problem represents a fundamental step.
Given the aim of the research, the keyword “Innovation” is used as
primary element of research. The maritime industry is often separated
between the sea-side of the business (e.g. ship design, propulsion) and
the land-side activities (e.g. terminals, port authorities, and infra-
structure related innovations). Hence the literature research includes
two specific keywords (i.e. “ports” and “shipping”) in order to consider
the potential double nature of the maritime industry. Moreover, this
differentiation allowed us to consider differences in terms of technology
evolution and applied market solutions, taking into consideration a
wider range of elements.
Once defined the main elements of the problem, the database
Scopus has been primarily used for assessing main academic researches.
Two sets of general keywords have been selected in the search engine:
“Innovation AND shipping” and “Innovation AND ports”. The first sets
were able to identify 460 and 1037 papers, for shipping and ports re-
spectively. After a first screening, most of the papers seemed to include
shipping and port related papers that were not dealing with innovations
directly affecting the maritime industry but they were also including,
for instance, general transportation studies or innovation studies with
marine related business cases (e.g. bioengineering, fishery). For this
reason, a further selection has been made, adding the filter “Maritime”
to the previous selections2. This last step allowed us to reduce the se-
lection to 172 and 189 papers, respectively3. The filter is consistent
with the fact that often the term “maritime” in linked to a more
(footnote continued)
industry and academia and given that it is used as a term of reference for the
industrial trends, it is reasonable to use it alone (also for avoiding “double
counting” if associated with other news media).
2
The papers selected are therefore focusing on the maritime industry as core
of their research. Nevertheless, some of these papers include some considera-
tions on wider logistic elements that could affect the maritime industry, such as
inland ports. These aspects are normally not the primary focus of the related
research.
Given the potential issues in replicating results (e.g. due to the changing
samples over time and the continuous publishing activities on different business
innovations), the full list of the assessed papers is available from the authors,
upon request.
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
industrial, business, and economic perspectives. A further screening
exercise slightly reduced the number of papers, since some double
counted papers (e.g. conference papers that were later published in
journals) were excluded. The final number of papers assessed was then
down to 322 manuscripts (i.e., 152 and 134 papers for ports and
shipping, respectively). These papers have been published over the last
four decades, with the first assessed paper (related to innovations in
shipping) published in 1982. Nevertheless, less than 15 and 10 papers,
for the shipping and port selections respectively, are older than
20 years.
Among these selected papers, 36 items appear on both selections,
representing papers that discuss innovative solutions that might affect
the maritime sector as whole. In assessing the 36 papers, some further
reductions needed to be developed, eliminating two further papers from
the original selection given their focus on either historical issues or
learning exercises rather than developing an analysis on innovation in
maritime industry. All other papers - even if some might be focused on
political interventions (e.g. US Department, 2013) – remained included
in the sample since they – at least partially – discuss innovations in the
maritime industry. Most of the analysis that follows focuses on the
common 34 papers while the others have been used only for quanti-
tative assessment (e.g. topics covered) as described in the following
subsections. Nevertheless, the small amount of papers included in this
selection underlines how only a small percentage of the papers labelled
under “shipping” or “port” innovations is actually covering the overall
maritime industry, demonstrating a scattered framework in studying
innovations within the maritime sector.
Eventually, starting from the findings of the scientific literature
analysis, the specialised source Tradewinds has been used in order to
collect industry view on innovations issues. Same keywords have been
used in the research engine of the Tradewinds website in order to
gather a similar set of inputs for the analysis. The main difference be-
tween the two databases is the fact the Tradewinds publishes news
daily, generating a more frequent discussion arena. 685 and 244 articles
were then been exported, discussing shipping and port innovation
news, respectively. These articles have been assessed only in terms of
the discussed topic in order to identify if there was an alignment be-
tween the industry innovation discussion and the scientific publishing
Fig. 1. Structure of the performed analysis.
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
trend. Fig. 1 shows then the process followed in the analysis.
From the original wider selection of papers (outcome of step 1),
subsequent refinements (i.e. use of the filter “Maritime” [step 2]; as-
sessment of the scope of the research and potential impact on the
overall maritime industry, and the exclusion of researches that deals
only with historical or educational elements and [Step 3]) led to the
final paper selection that has been discussed in relation with alternative
sources (e.g. industry news, citations, and references [Step 4]). This
process leads to the outcome of the proposed research. The detailed
methodological process is discussed in the following subsections.
2.2. Literature research
Concerning the literature research, it has already been noticed how
only 11% of the 322 analysed papers focused on innovations on the
maritime industry as whole. Despite this, all the papers have been
considered for the preliminary literature research. In order to select the
papers to focus on, two main criteria have been used, following the
Critical Appraisal Skills Program checklist often used in review assess-
ments (e.g. Calatayud et al., 2016; Wang and Notteboom, 2014): i)
relevance of the study in respect to the research question; ii) quality of
the study. The two criteria guarantee that the subset of analysed sources
can be representative of the main research streams as well as of the
highest quality. For instance, conference papers, book chapters, and
published articles were considered differently in the literature assess-
ment, given the different reviewing process that normally accompanies
their selection process.
Moreover, in studying the selected papers, references and citations
have also been considered in order to better understand if it was pos-
sible to enlarge the discussed sample. Nevertheless – apart from theo-
retical works (e.g. innovation theory), industry reports, and papers used
as examples for specific aspects of the transport industries (e.g. market
organisation, industry trends) – almost all the cited papers were either
already included in the first paper selection or just focusing on the
technical assessment of the studied innovations (e.g. how a certain
propulsion system works). Despite this, some of the references and
citing papers have been used in the next sections to better discuss the
main trends of the industry.
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
Fig. 2. Manuscripts sources. Source: Own Elaboration from Scopus, 2018.
Concerning the overall general statistics of the analysed papers, the
sample includes papers published in 129 and 118 different editorial
“sources” (e.g. journal series, books, conference proceedings, etc.), for
shipping and ports respectively. Interestingly, only 39 of these re-
present a common publication source for researches on both ports and
shipping, highlighting a certain specialisation in their editorial strategy.
Considering the overall assessed papers (i.e. 361 papers of step 2),
the distribution of sources is shown in Fig. 2. Given the need for ad-
dressing quality issues, journal articles – that represents about 60% of
the total – have been used to better understand the main research lines
that are currently discussed in the scientific studies while other sources
have been used to either check latest interests and developments (e.g.
often included in conference proceedings) or validated knowledge (that
is normally published in books).
Concerning the wider sample (i.e. the 322 studies), Table 1 lists the
top 10 publishing sources. As it is possible to see, some of them re-
presents either specialised series or conference proceedings (e.g. Mar-
itime by Holland, Holland Shipbuilding, Conference on Information
Management), showing an ongoing discussion on “maritime” innova-
tion and the interest of practitioners.
It is important to highlight that most of the specialised series (and
conference proceedings) include the majority of the technical assess-
ments (e.g. propulsion system, novel bunkering solutions) and they are
often specialised in specific industry aspects (e.g. either the ship or the
port) while journals generally include more generalised assessments.
Considering authors’ affiliations, shipping related studies have been
published mainly by authors from Delft University (3.1%), Dalian
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
Maritime University (2.6%), and Australian Maritime College (1.5%),
while ports related researches have been mainly developed by scholars
from the University of Antwerp (4%), Delft University (3.2%), and
Shanghai Maritime University (3.2%). Despite this, a scattered situation
can be highlighted, as shown in Table 2, showing a generalised interest
in the “maritime innovation” topic worldwide.
Looking at the content of the papers, most of the researches are
either belonging to the Business (i.e. logistics studies) or the
Engineering (i.e. technological development) areas. Moreover, most of
them are focusing on the generalities of studied innovations in either
the shipping or the port sector with case studies (either on specific
regional contexts, mainly in the port field, or on technologies, mainly in
the shipping field) that are often used as way to strengthen the focus. It
is important to highlight that most of the “innovations” studied are
often recurring (e.g. slow steaming, first applied to bulk shipping and
then to container; first studies on the reduction of air emission started
in ‘80 s but still debated; wind assisted propulsion studied in the ‘70 s;
scrubber identified by a report in the ‘90 s as potential solution for the
air pollution) but with few possibilities to highlight clear relevant so-
lutions that the author(s) foresee as future standard (as most of the
innovations highlighted above confirm).
While it is not possible to identify trends in the discussion of specific
innovations, the studies above are often linked to specific clustered
trends, for instance, one of the recent one (started in last ten years) is
connected to the application of new computing technologies in shipping
and ports, such as cyber-security, automation, and, Internet of Things
(IoT), in which several studies have been published in journals
T. Koukaki and A. Tei Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710

Table 1
Top 10 sources publishing studies on innovation cases in maritime industry.
“Shipping” “Port”

# Source Number of published Source Number of published

papers papers

1 Maritime By Holland 21 Maritime By Holland 14

2 Maritime Policy And Management 13 Maritime Policy And Management 9
3 Holland Shipbuilding 4 International Conference On Information Management 5
Innovation Management And Industrial Engineering 2009
4 Transactions Society Of Naval Architects And Marine 4 Journal Of Transport Geography 4
Engineers
5 Marine Policy 3 Maritime Economics And Logistics 4
6 Proceedings of the Annual General Assembly International 2 Journal Of Maritime Research 3
Association Of Maritime Universities 2014
7 Proceedings 2011 International Summer Conference Of Asia 2 Ocean And Coastal Management 3
Pacific Business Innovation And Technology Management
8 Applied Mechanics And Materials 2 Ports And Networks Strategies Operations And Perspectives 3
9 Asian Journal Of Shipping And Logistics 2 Research In Transportation Business And Management 3
10 Business History 2 Research In Transportation Economics 3

Source: Own Elaboration from Scopus, 2018.

Table 2 alternative fuels, new routing systems) that generated specific groups of
Top 5 institutions and countries publishing studies on innovation cases in studies.
maritime industry. Interestingly, within these “clustered trends”, researchers normally
Ports Shipping look at the single point of view of either the ports or the shipping sides
of the business, with only few studies that try to understand the overall
Rank Affilitation % Rank Affilitation % system. Thus, papers that study automation are normally focused on
either the port or the ship technologies but they do not assess the in-
1 Universiteit Antwerpen 4.0% 1 Delft University of 3.1%
Technology tegration in both systems, despite the obvious need for it. Similarly,
2 Delft University of 3.2% 2 Dalian Maritime 2.6% green policies are normally assessed at either land-side (e.g. cold-ir-
Technology University oning as a problem for the terminals) or at sea-side (e.g. alternative
3 Shanghai Maritime 3.2% 3 Australian Maritime 1.5%
fuels as a problem for shipowners), generating asymmetric trends in the
University College
4 Universita degli Studi di 2.8% 4 Hogskolen i Agder 1.5%
research, depending on either the port or the ship point of view.
Genova From these preliminary insights, it is therefore possible to highlight
5 Erasmus University 2.4% 5 University of Liverpool 1.5% that i) innovation studies in the maritime industry comes into “waves”
Rotterdam of research, with specific topics clustered in specific time periods (e.g.
Dalian Maritime 2.4% Cardiff University 1.5%
Environmental vs Containerisation) and ii) while innovations drag quite
University
Others 81.9% Others 88.1% attention, overall they have been studied from a quite general and
heterogenic point of view, with no possibility to determine specific
Ports Shipping
innovations that polarise the attention of researchers more than others
Rank Country % Rank Country % or that are identified as surely successful in achieving the planned
goals. This latter point seems to be in line with Acciaro et al. (2018) for
1 United Kingdom 3.1% 1 China 11.3% the port innovation sector as well as with other authors (e.g. Arduino
2 United States 2.6% 2 United States 10.1%
3 China 1.5% 3 Italy 6.5%
et al., 2013) for specific transport and technology related innovations.
4 Netherlands 1.5% 4 Netherlands 6.5% As mentioned earlier, only 34 papers assessed innovation as an in-
5 Germany 1.5% 5 Belgium 5.2% tegrated aspect, linking both the sea- and the land-side of the sector. For
Others 89.7% Others 60.5% this reason, these papers are the focus of the current study.
Source: Own Elaboration from Scopus, 2018.
2.3. Literature assessment
belonging to all main disciplines (e.g. Computer Science, Engineering,
Business, Politics, and Environment) somehow connected to the mar- Concerning the 34 papers included in the main studied sample,
itime sector. Nevertheless, it is the Environmental aspect that is now Table 3 summarizes their main bibliographical information. Within the
“monopolising” the discussion in the maritime innovation field: alter- studied papers, most of them assess specific case studies, either in terms
native fuels, green port policies, new technologies (e.g. mooring sys- of market development (e.g. Notteboom and Rodrigue (2008) focus on
tems, propulsion, ship design, ship and port emission control systems) general container market integrations, assessing innovation as new
as well as new informatics and organisational systems, able to reduce organizational paradigm) or in terms of specific innovations (e.g.
the impact of shipping on environment, represent the majority of the Lešinskis and Pavlovičs (2011) discuss the potential introduction of
studies published under the “innovation” label in the past few years. specific technology to increase port and ship productivity in certain
Fig. 3 provides an example of different “clustered studies” and trends, weather conditions). Despite this, a few of the highlighted studies focus
highlighting the cumulative percentage of studies included in three on general innovation trends (e.g. Vanelslander et al., 2016; Van Den
tentative categories (i.e., “Environment” and “Containerisation”) in Hanenberg, 2012) that might change the future of the industry. Inter-
which – for instance - it is possible to underline how almost 70% of the estingly, most of these studies belong to different fields of research (e.g.
studies looking at the Environment have been published after 2010, engineering for technology and ship design related studies; economics
while the Containerisation topic have seen different “waves” of interest and business for industry assessments; social sciences and law for some
due to specific innovative solutions (e.g. transhipment, mega-ships, of the general studies) generating a variety of methods that are not
normally acknowledged by the different selected researches while the

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T. Koukaki and A. Tei
Fig. 3. Cumulative percentage of studies focusing on specific aspects. Source: Own Elaboration from Scopus, 2018.
only common approach used is the development of ad-hoc assessments
in relation to the discussed case studies. This approach, even if useful to
achieve the researched aim, does not normally allow generalisations of
the research outcomes or comparison among the different results. This
latter aspect is also confirmed by the relevant references cited in the
sampled papers, with relative high percentage of general references
(e.g. on market development studies, on innovation studies developed
for other markets) but with only a few attracted citations from other
fields of study. This “loop” of citations potentially creates a closed circle
of readership that might reduce the capability of the research to achieve
a wider impact in the academic community.
Concerning the abovementioned papers, 14% of them were pub-
lished in the Maritime by Holland series while 13% were published by
either Maritime Policy and management or Maritime Economics and
Logistics. Thus, almost one third of the “maritime innovation” items
were published in specialised sources. On the other hand, the other
papers were either published by conferences or as part of general
transportation and logistics journals (e.g. Journal of Transport
Geography, International Journal of Transport Economics, Transport)
with the only exception of the Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics.
Thus, most of the studies on innovation in the maritime sector as whole
are normally presented to a more generalised audience that is normally
not only linked to the shipping business.
Despite this latter consideration, all the assessed studies are in-
cluded in transport related publications, with the recorded citations
mostly present within this field. This fact underlines an unbalanced
situations: most of the maritime innovation studies are based on general
innovation theory and reference different fields (e.g. informatics, fi-
nance, general engineering) in respect to the studied innovation,
nevertheless similar spillovers do not normally happen in favour of
maritime innovation studies, generating the closed audience mentioned
above.
The areas of study assessed by the papers are similar to the main
sample, with the Environmental solutions that represent the relative
majority of the papers published. Table 4 shows a classification of the
papers, aggregating them in 6 main categories in respect to the main
discussed topics: “Environmental Innovation”, “Routing and Organisa-
tion”, “Technical systems and Technological aspects”, “Logistics”,
“General Innovation”, and “IoT and Automation”, as also summarised
in Table 3. Interestingly, some of the technical (e.g. on a specific
technology), logistics (e.g. development of new train services), and
organisation related (e.g. new routing systems) papers do often have
environmental implications, increasing the importance of that parti-
cular aspect (e.g. in Table 3 some papers have been listed as both
“Environment” related and “Routing and Organisation” related). This
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
fact has been also highlighted in Acciaro et al. (2018) where the authors
underline how environmental solutions have often success as incidental
effect of innovations that were planned to achieve other kinds of goals
(e.g. efficiency, cost cutting), defining environment as “incidental goals
for many innovations”.
Considering the publication trends, only one of the selected papers
was published before 1990, and only three others have been published
in the ‘90s. Concerning environmental aspects – similarly to the main
trends highlighted above − 80% of the papers have been published
after 2011, demonstrating a rediscovered importance of the green is-
sues in the maritime industry. All other topics are generally evenly
spread over the studied timeline with the only exception of “Technical
and Technological aspects”: for these 5 studies, all the papers have been
published within the last decade. This latter aspect is not confirmed in
the wider selection of papers: in the wider group of 322 papers tech-
nical and technological issues are again evenly spread over the time.
This discrepancy is quite important: technical and technological de-
velopments (e.g. ship systems, ship propulsion, port infrastructure, Port
Community System) have been historically studied separating shipping
from ports while recent researches seem to include a more systemic
approach as well, given the integrated systems that most of the com-
panies are now interested to develop. On the opposite, only few sys-
temic studies have recently published on Automation and IoT devel-
opments that include both the sea and land side of the industry (e.g.
Collier et al., 2018) while most of the published studies focus on either
the development from a port (e.g. Mileski et al., 2017) or ship per-
spective (e.g. Fischer, 2017) without discussing the modifications of the
industry as whole. Similar issues might be highlighted in terms of in-
novations that should have an impact on the wider logistics (e.g. dec-
arbonisation) due to their link to both port infrastructure (e.g. bunker
station, cold ironing) and ship technology (e.g. new fuels, propulsion
systems) but that they are currently studied with no systemic approach.
Thus, within the 34 assessed papers (and related references and
citations) it is possible to highlight some specific trends. All the cited
papers, even utilizing different angles, seem to be interested in under-
standing how a certain solution (or group of solutions) is developed and
deployed within the maritime industry rather than investigating future
developments or advancements of the solution itself. The discussion,
even within technical papers, is therefore focused on effects and con-
sequences and rarely on the novelty of the innovation (e.g. Portella
et al., 2011). The innovation process (and then the application of the
innovation) is therefore the focus of the academic studies in the mar-
itime industry and as it was for most of the 322 overall selected papers –
the studies rarely focus on understanding if the specific innovation will
become the standard to solve a certain issue. Simple examples of this
T. Koukaki and A. Tei Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710

Table 3
Selected papers.
Year Paper Main focus Main area of study

1988 Wright (1988) - Potential port responses to new information systems on ships Information Technology Technical systems and Technological
aspects
1994 Rissoan (1994) - River-sea navigation in Europe Ship design and routing systems Environment & Routing and
Organisation
1994 Slack (1994) - Domestic containerization and the load centre concept Logistics and Intermodal transport Logistics
1996 Nuhn (1996) - The ports between Hamburg and Le Havre Logistics and Intermodal transport Logistics
2004 Theis et al. (2014) - Role of technology in achieving environmental policy goals in Technological solutions for improving Environment & Technical systems and
the maritime transportation system environmental performance Technological aspects
2004 Hansen (2004) - Automated shunting of rail container wagons in ports and terminal Logistics and Intermodal transport Logistics
areas
2005 Pando et al. (2005) - Marketing management at the world's major ports Innovation and marketing tools General
2008 Notteboom and Rodrigue (2008) - Containerisation box logistics and global supply Logistics and Intermodal transport Logistics
chains: The integration of ports and liner shipping networks
2010 Corbett et al. (2010) - International maritime shipping: The impact of globalisation Service patterns and industry organisation Routing and Organisation
on activity levels
2011 Cho and Yang (2011) - Identifying country environments to increase container Country environment to improve Environment
traffic volumes shippping performance
2011 Portella et al. (2011) - Single-pour / single pass loading an innovative concept for a Ship design Technical systems and Technological
new generation of ore carriers aspects
2011 Lešinskis and Pavlovičs (2011) - The aspects of implementation of Unmanned Technological solutions for improving Technical systems and Technological
Aerial Vehicles for ice situation awareness in Maritime Traffic shipping and port performance aspects
2012 Shin et al. (2012) - Gyeong-in Waterway puts Seoul back on the maritime map Port investment General
2012 Van Den Hanenberg (2012) - Dutch maritime innovations honoured Policy intervention to promote innovation General
2012 Buitelaar (2012) - Global holland BigLift: Rather be smarter New industry trends Technical systems and Technological
aspects
2013 Utama and Jamaluddin (2014) - Development of mono and multihull resistance Ship design for boosting environment Technical systems and Technological
sustainable marine technology development and green innovation performance aspects
2013 de Langen et al. (2013) - Business models and network design in hinterland Industry organisation and Logistics Logistics
transport
2013 Van Den Hanenberg (2013) - The Dutch inland shipping industry: Rising to the Logistics and Intermodal transport Logistics
challenges
2013 US Department for Transportation* (2013) - America's marine highway: Report to Service patterns and industry organisation General
congress
2015 Huang (2015) - A comparative study on pollutant emissions and hub-port selection Maritime missions in context of Routing and Organisation
in Panama Canal expansion infrastructure modifications
2015 Hermann et al. (2015). - Innovation in product and services in the shipping retrofit Ballast water systems Environment
industry: A case study of ballast water treatment systems
2015 Van Den Hanenberg (2015) - It's time for 'green ships' Green shipping Environment
2015 Yannoulis (2015) - Fostering sustainable maritime transport within the EU-work New service patterns to increase Environment
status at the european sustainable shipping forum sustainability
2016 Vanelslander et al. (2016) - Innovation among seaport operators: A QCA approach Evaluation of innovation patterns General
for determining success conditions
2016 Da Costa and Goncalves (2016) - Routing problem with pendular and cyclic service Service patterns and industry organisation Routing and Organisation
in a hierarchical structure of hub and spoke with multiple allocation of sub-hubs
2016 Wang and Hong (2016) - Spatial structure of container port systems across the Service patterns and industry organisation Routing and Organisation
Taiwan Straits under the direct shipping policy: A complex network system
approach
2016 Morrissey and Cummins (2016) - Measuring relatedness in a multisectoral cluster: Economic assessment of a maritime related General
an input–output approach cluster and its trends
2017 Myles (2017) - Maritime clusters and the ocean economy: An integrated approach Coastal management tools Environment
to managing coastal and marine space
2017 Heilig and Voß (2017) - Port-centric information management in smart ports: A Logistics and Intermodal transport Routing and Organisation
framework and categorisation
2017 Geerlings and Wiegmans (2017) - Technological innovations Technological solutions for improving Technical systems and Technological
shipping and port performance aspects
2018 Collier et al. (2018) - Scenario Analysis and PERT/CPM Applied to Strategic Automation in ports IoT and Automation
Investment at an Automated Container Port
2018 Maritime by Holland* (2018) - Port related start-ups gather in Rotterdam Information Technology IoT and Automation
2018 Tran and Haasis (2018) - A research on operational patterns in container liner Service patterns and industry organisation Routing and Organisation
shipping
2018 Villa-Caro et al. (2018) - A review of ship mooring systems Technical systems (i.e. mooring) and its Technical systems and Technological
impact aspects

* represents papers in which the author(s) is not directly acknowledged.

ongoing focus are represented by the general papers (e.g. Morrissey and
Cummins, 2016) or the business-oriented ones (e.g. Tran and Haasis,
2018). Concerning this aspect, the knowledge transfer from other in-
dustries is emblematic: most of the discussed solutions (e.g. automa-
tion, new fuels) are often either pushed by political decision makers
(e.g. IMO regulation on pollution [Traut et al., 2018]) or studied for
other sectors and then adapted to the maritime industry (e.g. in the case
of automation [Lešinskis and Pavlovičs, 2011]), leaving most of the
actual studies on the specific innovation to other fields of research (e.g.
scholars only interested in the development of fuels but not specifically
in shipping).
The focus on the “process” that lead to an innovation rather than on
the study of the “innovation” itself obviously affects the methodologies
used. As already mentioned, most of the papers address case studies, in
most cases adapting general methodologies (e.g. qualitative methods,
statistical tools, econometric analysis, simulation theory) to the specific

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T. Koukaki and A. Tei Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710

Table 4
Area of studies of the selected papers.
Main area of study Example of Innovation # of papers % of papers

Environment Ballast Water management system 8 23.5%

Routing and Organisation Network Optimisation 7 20.6%
Technical Systems and Technological aspects All Weather Cranes 5 14.7%
Logistics PCS 6 17.6%
General Decision Support System 5 14.7%
IoT and Automation Automated terminals 3 8.8%

Table 5
Main Innovations discussed in specialised new sources.
Innovation Typology Main Area of Study Implemented

Alternative Fuels: Liquefied Natural gas (LNG) Fuel Environment Yes

Exhaust Gas Cleaning Systems (Scrubbers) Fuel Environment Yes
Alternative Fuels: Distillates Fuel Environment Yes
Alternative Fuels: Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) Fuel Environment Yes
Alternative Fuels: Methanol Fuel Environment No
Alternative Fuels: Biofuels Fuel Environment No
Alternative Fuels: Hydrogen Fuel Environment No
E-market platforms ICT IoT and Automation Yes
Blockchain ICT IoT and Automation No
Cybersecurity ICT IoT and Automation Partially
All weather terminals Ports Environment Yes
Port community systems Ports Technical Systems and Technological aspects Yes
Cold ironing Ports Environment Yes
Ballast Water Management Systems Ship Technology Environment Yes
Slow Steaming Strategy Routing and Organisation /
Ship Size Ship Technology Technical Systems and Technological aspects /
Advanced materials Ship Technology Technical Systems and Technological aspects /
Flettner rotor Ship Technology Technical Systems and Technological aspects No
Big data analytics ICT IoT and Automation Partially
Robotics Ship Technology IoT and Automation No
Sensors Ship Technology Environment Partially
Smart Shipping Strategy IoT and Automation No
Autonomous vessels Ship Technology IoT and Automation No

Source: Own Elaboration from TradeWinds, 2018.

case, with many descriptive approaches aiming at addressing the pos-
sibility to achieve the specific goal of the paper rather than developing
further the studied solution (e.g. proposing improvements related to the
discussed innovations, individuating novel applications, assessing the
possibility of further benefits). This makes most of the conclusions
difficult to generalise or to have an immediate impact in developing
further the studied “innovation”.
3. Analysis and Interpretation
As mentioned earlier, the 34 assessed papers generate doubts on the
study of innovation in the maritime industry, often focusing more on
the implementation phases of certain innovative solutions rather than
on studying (or developing) the innovation concept itself. The discus-
sion of the innovation process is equally important but often creates a
misunderstanding in the critical debate of innovation in shipping.
Extant evaluations of groups of innovations (e.g. Acciaro et al., 2018;
Vanelslander et al., 2016) have the stated aim of achieving a better
understanding of the effects of certain innovative solutions on the
market. Similar situations could be found in cases in which the papers
are not explicitly discussing innovations, but the topic is strictly related
to them (e.g. de Langen et al., 2013; Notteboom and Rodrigue, 2008).
Nevertheless, several researches state their aim as the study of in-
novation cases in shipping (e.g. Makkonen and Inkinen, 2018; Fanelis,
2013) but they do become descriptive and focus only on the effects of
the discussed innovation deployment with only limited advancements
in the knowledge of the innovation itself. This potential inconsistency
between the stated aim and the achieved goal is partially reducing the
impact of academic research in the field, only mitigated by specific
studies on the technical side (e.g. ship design, propulsion systems) that
do not take into consideration the effect of such innovation on the
overall maritime industry. These latter studies are not included in the
closed sample and do refer on publications on specific industrial chal-
lenges (e.g. Coraddu et al. (2016) assess the maintenance of propulsion
system through a simple ship perspective with no consideration of the
overall system). Despite the presence of such body of research, most of
them acknowledge the role of industrial research in driving new ad-
vancements in the maritime sector, either through specific funding or
through collaborative projects: while in most of the industrial sectors
innovation is led by academic research (e.g. Mansfield, 1991; Perkmann
et al., 2013; Giannopoulou et al., 2019) this seems not to be the case
when it comes to the maritime sector.
3.1. Innovation debate within the maritime industry
Considering the potential role of the industry in promoting novel
solutions, the database of TradeWinds has been used to check the dis-
cussed topics on new innovations in the maritime industry. The analysis
has been developed using a similar approach in respect to the academic
literature: the same keywords have been searched in the database,
highlighting 685 papers for the port and 244 for the shipping innova-
tion categories. This new set of news has then been investigated in
terms of discussed innovations and general discussion. Given the nature
of the debate, industry discussion is normally more specific in assessing
new trends, being more interested in the benefits of implementing
certain solutions rather than discussing general characteristics or case
studies.
Table 5 sums up the main technological solutions discussed within

707
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
the TradeWinds database. The time range for the research was
2000–2018 given that most of the discussed scientific papers were
published in that period. All the discussed innovations have been
classified per typology (in relation to the main aspect discussed) and
main area of study (following the classification used in Tables 3 and 4
for the scientific literature). A specific link to news is not provided in
the table given that most of the issues have been discussed in several
articles, sometimes as part of either wider industry stakeholders’ in-
terviews or as part of the assessment of wider company strategies.
Moreover, Table 5 includes an indication of the implementation stage of
the discussed solutions, highlighting if at least the most recent articles
were discussing an implemented solution. On this latter aspect, it is
important to highlight that while most scientific papers discuss in-
novations that are only partially developed – or still in their develop-
ment phase – for the industry related articles is the opposite: most of the
industry concerns focus on either the effect of the implementation of a
certain solution or about the possibility to further improve a certain
existing innovation. Similarly, while the “typology” of innovation is
quite relevant for the academic debate (i.e., forming “clustered
trends”), different maritime stakeholders seem more focused on the
specific innovation that can bring more advantages to their businesses.
Once again this does not mean that it is possible to identify clear future
perspectives for certain innovation - or areas in which they can bring
clear advantages – since it appears strongly dependent on the stake-
holders’ point of view. For instance, blockchain has been seen as
bringing clear advantages by most of the shipping companies but au-
thorities are struggling in acknowledging it (e.g. Tradewinds, 2018;
Bavassano et al., 2020); LNG seems to be an effective choice for cruise
shipping but it is often rejected by bulk companies; etc.
3.1.1. Industry vs academia
As highlighted in Table 5, a common interest between Academia
and Industry is linked to environmental related innovations but in
contrast with the scientific literature, the industry seems more inter-
ested in the development of specific technologies to reduce the pollu-
tion rather than on the effects of specific policies or strategies (e.g.
integrated transport). Some of the papers included in the sample (e.g.
fuel [Wang and Notteboom, 2014], ballast water systems [e.g. Hermann
et al., 2015]) do address specific innovations including technical issues
but they are generally more related to the implementation rather than
to the development of such innovation. In this regard, Table 5 shows
how specific is the debate within the industry (e.g. Sensors, flettner
rotors, specific fuels) while the academic debate is often quite generic
(e.g. pollutants, emission policies) with the only overlaps that happen
on systemic approaches (e.g. blockchain, automation). Thus, while it is
possible to segment the debate into areas of study, it is not possible to
highlight symmetries in the debate (e.g. a good example is the “dec-
arbonisation” of shipping that is often cited in the academic literature
but it is seldom in the industry debate due to the need of more precise
solutions, e.g. alternative fuels).
Moreover, some discussions seem to enjoy a cyclical pattern: this is
the case of certain strategic or technological solutions (e.g. cold-ir-
oning, flettner rotors, slow steaming) that are often considered viable
solutions but only when certain market or technical conditions are met.
Thus, whenever these conditions are not met, the related “innovations”
are not discussed, being “re-discovered” after a few years from different
market players. This cyclicality is often affecting the scientific debate as
well: the case of slow steaming is emblematic with many authors (e.g.
Ferrari et al., 2015) discussing it as novelty after the 2006 (mainly in
connection with container shipping) even if it has been in place several
times in the past (mainly in the bulk market), as shown by Bausch et al.,
1998, among others.
Moreover, while scientific papers are often focused on some main
dominant technologies (e.g. studying the LNG fuel market as replace-
ment of traditional bunker [e.g. Kok, 2013; Wang and Notteboom,
2014]), industry debate seems more open to assess alternative options,
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
given the different market conditions that could lead operators in
choosing alternative solutions. Thus, it is possible to highlight that
while academic research is mainly focused in assessing either the effects
of certain innovations or to retrospectively understand success and
failure of them, industry is more focused in discussing pros and cons of
potential new applications and solutions. This difference seems to
generate a “pulling” role of the industrial interest with a “pushed” re-
search activity developed within the traditional academic debate.
An interesting example is given by the comparison among
TradeWinds articles and Scopus papers on automation in the maritime
industry (and until a few years ago on Port Community Systems or
Blockchain). While, starting from the 2000, automation has been dis-
cussed at industry level, this was almost missing in the scientific lit-
erature. Interestingly, industry developed first automation systems (and
similarly the information system) through knowledge transfer from
other sectors with only a few specialised academic researches on the
topics. Maritime literature came then later, assessing more the con-
sequences (e.g. Arduino et al., 2013) of the innovation rather than
“leading” its development or suggesting improvements capable of im-
proving the applied solutions. Thus, often academic works seem more
interested in acting as an “observer” rather than being involved in the
development of innovative concepts.
This important finding seems in contrast with major general studies
on innovation whenever applied to other industrial sectors (e.g.
Mansfield, 1991; Perkmann et al., 2013; Giannopoulou et al., 2019) but
it is in line with the concept of a maritime industry quite reluctant to
invest in new solutions (e.g. ITF, 2010; Stopford, 2009). This well-
known conservatism – as well as the difficulty in testing effects of in-
novative solutions in a market that is highly capital intensive as well as
dependent on networks – is often making easier to apply solutions al-
ready established in other markets – or highly envisaged by relevant
industrial partners - rather than investigating new ideas with high risk
of not being deployed. Hence, the pulling effect the industry is currently
generating on the academic debate.
3.1.2. Trends and patterns
As stated above, it is possible to identify some trends and patterns
within the academic and industrial debate. A first element is connected
to the shift of the debate within academic papers: most of the papers
experienced a shift in the discussed area of studies (i.e. categories in
Table 3). For instance, almost 50% of the environmental researches are
concentrated in the year 2015, creating a critical mass of knowledge
capable of affecting subsequent analyses.
Before the environmental aspect became a priority, most of the
papers discussed diversified instances but – within the main analysis – a
common aspect was the identification of a link between the im-
plemented innovation and diversified performance indicators (e.g. ef-
ficiency, cost, etc.). From 2015, even if the primary focus of the study
was not on environmental issues, most of the papers started including a
discussion on environmental effects (e.g. Heilig and Voß, 2017; Villa-
Caro et al., 2018). This situation highlights the possibility to form a
bundle of studies capable of shifting the point of view of several ana-
lyses, promoting a wider discussion and a “multi-objective” debate.
Interestingly only few technology papers have been found in the
assessed sample: within the maritime innovation studies IoT, automa-
tion, and advanced technologies seem to be normally linked to a
technological transfer from other sectors, limiting the academic interest
of maritime scholars, at least if the overall “maritime industry” concept
is taken into consideration. On the other hand, within the wider sample
(i.e. the 322 papers), some technical innovations are analysed, but they
normally relate to specific aspects of a certain innovation or on a case
study. This latter aspect is linked to the focus of most of the innovation
studies that prefer to address the innovation process rather than
studying the innovation itself.
Thus, most of the analysis were “descriptive”, focusing on the ob-
servation on the achievement of a certain goal rather than on the
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
critical discussion on how to improve such situation. This seems to
appear as a common element of both “performance related” and “en-
vironmental driven” studies.
From an industry point of view, similar “discussion patterns” can be
observed, with specific technical solutions that address issues related to
either cost/efficiency problems or regulatory elements (e.g. environ-
ment). Nevertheless, at industry level, specific trends are more difficult
to observe, with all general categories present over the whole time
period and with discussions that cover both the implementation of an
innovation and the innovation itself. Eventually, it is interesting to
highlight how the cyclicality of the discussion is mainly related to the
maritime industry characteristics (e.g. overcapacity always leads to a
stress on innovative solutions focused on better managing the ship, such
as slow steaming).
3.2. Consequences of a pushed debate
The issue of having a scientific debate often pushed by the industry
practices might be explained by the difficulty for academics to access
high quality information that would allow scholars to effectively debate
on alternative (and improved) applications of innovations, currently
under development. A good example might be related to the novel
development of the blockchain technology: while articles on blockchain
on Tradewinds started to be widely discussed in 2016, with specific
articles related to the IBM – Maersk agreement, research papers on the
topic are still seldom in 2019. Despite this, industry has moved fast,
with several consortia (and all main port and shipping market players)
being involved in the development of competing blockchain solutions
(e.g. Bavassano et al., 2019, 2020). Similarly, in the automation of ei-
ther vessels or ports register the first papers in early 2000 (e.g. Hansen,
2004) while industry have started discussing such solutions in early
‘90s, with the first articles – included in Tradewinds – discussing pio-
neering automated vessels dated 1992.
This ongoing delay is partially caused by the publication lag that
occurs from the time for a research to be developed until the publica-
tion year: this appears as of particular importance for the soft tech-
nology-based innovations (e.g. blockchain, IoT) for which this lag
makes potential studies at risk of ageing rapidly. Thus, in this situation,
descriptive studies or general assessments have a wider effect in respect
to analyses that might have a much-reduced impact.
The consequence of such situation is an academic research not al-
ways capable of driving the innovation development debate, with the
industry leading the main advancement efforts. While this has a clear
advantage in terms of implementation, it might turn to be inefficient in
terms of resource allocations (e.g. multiple innovations that struggle to
become market-ready) or being accessible to all the market (e.g. de-
velopment of multiple blockchain networks with potential access bar-
riers or delays in the technology development).
4. Concluding remarks
The paper addresses a critical issue for the future of the maritime
industry, defining how innovation studies are normally developed,
which are the hot topics under investigation, and if the academic debate
is in line with the industry discussion.
The systematic literature review showed a fragmented situation
with several studies focusing on specific aspects, with few general-
isation attempts. Among the selected papers, only 12% were discussing
innovations in the maritime field as whole while the remaining group of
papers were dealing with either case studies or specific innovation
details. Moreover, most of the studies were just focused on the discus-
sion of the implementation of the innovations (and related con-
sequences) rather than on the development of the innovation concept
itself. This latter fact is often causing a discrepancy with the industry
debate that is often leading the innovation discussion, promoting novel
thinking and new applications. Moreover, this element often affects the
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Case Studies on Transport Policy 8 (2020) 700–710
possibility to use academic literature to address future innovation
perspectives while the related industry debate is often linked to the
specific stakeholders’ strategy. The presence of several case studies
among the academic papers reduces the possibility to generalise the
research outcomes, impacting on the feasibility of producing actual
results directly applicable to the market. This is also highlighted by a
delay in the academic debate of certain topics in respect to the industry
(e.g. automation, blockchain). The specificity of the research developed
by the academia is also demonstrated by the fact that while the studied
papers are normally published in transport related journals, none of
them is published in more generic journals, reducing the potential
impact of the studied outcomes.
Both the industry and the academia recently turned their interest on
developing an integrated approach, mainly connected to environmental
innovations. Thus, the debate is today more focused on innovative so-
lutions aiming at dealing with multiple issues (e.g. fuels that can
guarantee both economic and environmental advantages, routing sys-
tems optimize both deployed capacity and fuel consumption). Despite
this common trend, it is interesting noticing how this is pursued in
different ways, with an ongoing discussion on alternative solutions for
the industry (e.g. alternative fuels, propulsion systems, ballast water
systems) and on a polarized debate for the academia (mainly on fuels
and some technical or organisational alternatives). Similarly, trends
and hot topics seem to be promoted by the industry – often through
knowledge transfer by other sectors – and then further investigated by
the academia. The main weakness of such approach might be a reduced
possibility to maximise the benefits of the developed innovations, given
that it will be mainly tailored on the promoter perspective (e.g. not
necessarily achieving its full potential for either the industry or the
public community). This is partially reflected in the development of the
academic research as well: the research on specific case studies or in-
novation specific elements might in fact be connected to the presence of
a main industrial innovation champion (as also highlighted in Acciaro
et al., 2018; Vanelslander et al., 2016) that often lead the innovation
process and therefore the main debate on the innovation concept while
academic research can only address the implementation of such in-
novative concept. This fact seems to be quite relevant in relation to the
misleading concept of a maritime industry resilient to innovation: while
this concept might be true if based on simple academic research, it
seems incorrect if based on industry led analyses.
Authors are aware of the many limitations of the current research,
among which the possibility to further expand the sample of studies
(e.g. through the use of multiple search engines), segmenting innova-
tions of different nature (e.g. soft and hard innovation) that might lead
to differentiated processes, comparing industry led innovations through
their actual development rather than proxying such research through a
news portal, and the difficulties in replicating results (e.g. due to the
rapid publication of new papers, the dynamics of the debate on in-
novation). Despite this, the presented paper achieved its aim of pre-
senting main critical issues related to the innovation debate in the
maritime sector as whole, underlining current characteristics of the
related field of studies as well as trying to differentiate innovations
applicable to just one side of the industry (e.g. port vs ship) or devel-
oped to benefit the whole maritime business. The research results can
easily use by both scholars and practitioners to further expand the field,
trying to generalise the outcomes in the attempt to develop solutions for
the benefit of the whole maritime sector.
Acknowledgement
Authors would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers whose
comments and suggestions helped improve and clarify this manuscript.
The present research has been developed through the generous support
of the Prime Funding scheme (Newcastle University).
T. Koukaki and A. Tei
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