The NCN engages with the marine sector via the British Marine Federation and activities such as roadmapping and foresighting in order to define future goals and targets for the industry. Roadmapping is a knowledge capture technique that defines the capabilities, technologies and products required to achieve these goals. In March 2006, NCN ran a roadmapping workshop with participants from a representative cross-section of the marine sector. An initial roadmap was produced with the following recommendations.

Awareness and networking

• The marine industry should make use of technologies developed in the automotive and aerospace sectors, particularly nanocomposites and nanocoatings.
• To foster this, NCN should broker contacts and collaborations with non-competing commercial and academic organisations. 
• NCN should develop a database of academic expertise in composites. This is underway through the NCN Technology Provider Database, available to NCN members.

Manufacturing

• Make manufacturing efficiencies through use of low cost centres and lean processing practices.
• Improve communication within organisations between engineers and purchasing and give engineers more contact with suppliers.

Skills

• More trained process engineers are needed in the marine industry.
• More publically available information on relevant training courses is needed. Basic information and links to providers is available to NCN members here.

Technology and innovation

• Time availability and production pressures inhibit development of new technologies. More focused efforts towards development should be undertaken. In this area, a more collaborative approach needs to be explored.
• Time and effort are required to access funding for development projects and greater awareness of what opportunities (e.g. calls for proposals) is needed. NCN should assist with this.

The full roadmap is available below as a PDF download to NCN members only. If you are not a member of NCN, you can register for free here