Within the last decade, the Maltese Maritime Industry has been experiencing rapid technical development, sustaining compliance with international standards and regulations, whilst concurrently endeavouring to adopt the latest, novel, state-of-the-art engineering techniques to support this vision. However, the local maritime industry has untapped potential and is seeking knowledge-exchange to enhance its capability in the long-term.

To establish the capacity, the University of Malta is forging ahead with plans to set up experimental and virtual towing facilities, which are deemed fundamental to the design of energy-efficient sea-faring vessels. Although the infrastructure installation is already underway, the appropriate long-term use of such high-end facilities may solely be secured via expertise knowledge-transfer and networking opportunities with institutions that have already established a strong track record in the field. Funded by the European Commission, the VENTuRE project (Project No. 856887), is coordinated by the Department of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Malta and led by Prof. Inġ. Claire De Marco as the Project Leader. VENTuRE aims to facilitate the knowledge transfer by means of a twinning arrangement.

The project will enable the transfer of academic & industrial knowledge exchange between international research institutions in the maritime industry, namely the University of Strathclyde and the Università degli Studi di Genova, and local entities such as the University of Malta and Naval Architectural Services (NAS) Ltd. The latter is an industrial company and a key partner, seeking to benefit from this framework by providing the necessary support and characterisation of real-life maritime requirements.

Knowledge-transfer shall be fuelled through a variety of planned activities:

1. short specialist courses to enhance scientific and technological capacity;
2. actions to build tomorrow's maritime professionals and academic innovators through research conferences and schools, student exchanges, and secondments in industry; 
3. joint academic and industrial dissemination endeavours via publications and workshops; 
4. actions to raise the research profile and international standing of the University of Malta and the Maltese Maritime Industry through research networking activities.