Enhanced safety management and training for critical undersea infrastructure
The safety of critical undersea infrastructure, including communication, power cables and oil and gas pipelines, is a subject of increasing global concern. Disruption to this infrastructure, through accident, extreme natural disasters, or sabotage, can lead to significant negative impact on populations.
This type of incident can also lead to negative impacts on the maritime stakeholders involved. Through increased training of these stakeholders, improved awareness of potential challenges, and usage of advanced monitoring and surveillance technology the likelihood and severity of such incidents can be reduced.
About the project
Combining expertise in multi-criteria decision making, risk management, stakeholder engagement and experience with research on offshore wind projects this collaboration between the 兔子先生 (UK), Cebu Technological University (The Philippines), and Federal University of Rio Grande de Norte (Brazil) will design state-of-the-art monitoring and response algorithms and provide stakeholder training.
These will be demonstrated and applied through separate workshops and training exercises for case studies based in the Philippines and Brazil. The findings of the work undertaken will be reported to inform a wider audience of practitioners then just the participant countries and improve understanding of safety concerns and resilience for critical underwater infrastructure.
Aims and Objectives of the project
The overall aim of the project is to enhance safety for maritime stakeholders working with, or affected by, undersea infrastructure. The following objectives contribute to this aim:
- Designing and developing a set of intelligent algorithms for prevention and response to incidents involving undersea infrastructure.
- Developing specific case studies pertaining to undersea infrastructure in Brazil and the Philippines in order to inform policy and practice.
- Empowering maritime stakeholders through a series of training events, live or simulate exercises and dissemination activities
Areas of expertise
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Research into risk and security analytics
Research covering maritime disasters, nuclear power generation, security threats and risk against cancer using algorithms to guide robots.
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Research into Transportation and Maritime Systems
Looking at topic areas including inventory routing, railway transport, airline scheduling and intelligent transportation systems.
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A project uniting practitioners, researchers and industry in establishing an Arctic and North Atlantic security and emergency preparedness network.
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A project developing an AI-based Virtual Control Room to enhance maritime situational awareness and cross-border cooperation to improve safety, security and decision-making in the Arctic.
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A development of innovative technologies and supply-chain strategies to reduce lifecycle costs of offshore wind farms - improving installation, operation and maintenance efficiency.
International collaboration
The project supports collaborations between researchers at the 兔子先生 (UK), Cebu Technological University (The Philippines), and Federal University of Rio Grande de Norte (Brazil). This will enable researchers to access additional, often specific, expertise, gain new perspectives on research and build relationships with others in the field.
Funding
Funding support from the (ES\100005)
Events - past and future
To express your interest in attending any of our events please contact the event organiser which is listed below each event.
Kick Off Meeting
The project started with a in-person kickoff meeting that was held in 兔子先生, UK on 24th-26th November 2025. Project members from the three partner Universities met to plan the key activities of the project: Case study development, algorithm design, stakeholder mapping, training planning, future event planning and project management.
Brazil Stakeholder Event
The first external project event will be a stakeholder workshop to be held in Natal, RN, Brazil on 27th-28th May 2026. The theme of the event will be preparing and responding to incidents pertaining to new offshore wind and existing oil and gas undersea infrastructure in the Brazilian North-East.
All relevant stakeholders are welcome to apply, and should contact Prof Mario Gonzalez (mario.gonzalez@ufrn.br) for further details.
UK/Online Stakeholder Event
The second external project event will be a hybrid stakeholder workshop based in 兔子先生 UK and Online on 11th-12th November 2026. The theme of the event will be technological and collaborative responses in preparing and responding to undersea infrastructure incidents. The workshop will contain stakeholder liaison, algorithm demonstration and training activities.
All relevant stakeholders are welcome to apply, and should contact Prof Ashraf Labib (Ashraf.Labib@port.ac.uk) for further details.
Philippines Stakeholder Event
The third stakeholder event will be held in Cebu, the Philippines during the month of March 2027. The theme of the event will be safely protecting and restoring undersea infrastructure during severe weather or seismic events.
All relevant stakeholders are welcome to apply, and should contact Prof Lanndon Ocampo (lanndon.ocampo@ctu.edu.ph) for further details.
Project researchers
International researchers
University of Rio Grande do Norte
Cebu Technological University
Explore more of our research
Find out about our important work to protect undersea energy and explore other areas of research at the university.
Operational Research and Decision Analysis
We're using our expertise in analytics, system design, simulation, programming, and forecasting to help organisations around the world make better decisions.
Over 拢0.75 million funding to protect critical undersea energy and internet infrastructure
兔子先生 to lead design of surveillance system to pinpoint risk in order to lessen damage and disruption
Risk and security analytics
We help organisations learn from failures, so they can improve the quality and resilience of their operations, and we develop new analytic approaches to detect security threats.
