PhD Fellowship - Maritime Observatory

The World Maritime University (WMU) and Lloyd’s Register Foundation (LRF) entered into a strategic partnership in 2026. One of its pillars is the Maritime Observatory, a new strategic initiative to strengthen the availability, analysis and use of high-quality evidence in support of maritime policy and decision making. The Observatory works at the intersection of data science, maritime research and policy making, drawing on data analysis and the wider evidence base to produce insights for informed decision making in the maritime sector. It works in connection with LRF’s Global Safety Evidence Centre (GSEC) and is geared primarily towards evidence-based policy making at WMU’s parent, the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and across the wider maritime sector.

WMU is offering two PhD fellowships under this framework, one quantitative and one qualitative. Each fellowship supports a focused doctoral research project with defined research questions, appropriate methods, and an original academic contribution. The Observatory provides the setting and the opportunities for applying this research. Together with the Observatory’s core team, the Fellows will form a complementary team. Each fellowship will contribute research that strengthens a distinct part of the Observatory role as an evidence centre:

• Quantitative Fellowship: Research that advances the data and measurement base that lets the Observatory say what is happening and what works;

• Qualitative Fellowship: Research that advances the evidence-use and convening practice that helps to translate knowledge into decisions.

Each fellowship supports a focused doctoral research project with an original academic contribution.

Seafarers’ statistics

Seafarer data is limited and harder to access than data in other industries. Yet seafarer statistics are of vital importance for decisions on training and certification, working and living conditions and welfare at sea, and for planning the workforce the sector will need as fuels and technologies change.

Digitalization and autonomy

Digital technologies, automation and autonomous ships are changing operations, ports and regulation faster than the evidence about them accumulates. Experience is spread across trials, simulations, approvals and early operations, and is hard to compare across vessel types and jurisdictions. A current example is the experience-building phase for the IMO code for maritime autonomous surface ships (MASS). The evidence base remains thin and scattered, thus hard to incorporate when shaping policy and taking risk-adjusted decisions.

Safety outcomes and regulatory effectiveness

Whether maritime policy outcomes play out as intended is a question the sector rarely answers with evidence. Casualties, incidents, detentions and compliance are recorded unevenly, and the link between an IMO instrument or national measure and what happens at sea is seldom tested. Measuring safety outcomes and examining what makes regulation effective in practice is of key importance for guiding international policy and decision-making.

Before applying please read carefully the Terms of Reference.

Applicants must apply online via WMU’s portal: https://wmu.se/programmes/phd-maritime-affairs. Click “Apply now” to the Maritime Affairs (PhD).

More information about the PhD Programme here.

Further information regarding the Observatory and the fellowships can be obtained through communication with Dr Tiago Fonseca, Head of Data and Insights, Maritime Observatory, at: observatory@wmu.se. Applicants are welcome to make informal contact before applying.