Launch of Erasmus Smart Port Rotterdam
On December 6, 2010, Erasmus University, the Rotterdam city government, the Port of Rotterdam, and the association of port companies Deltalinqs signed the agreement to cooperate in Smart Port. The signing marked the launch of Erasmus Smart Port Rotterdam, a new centre of excellence for maritime and port-related research and education. The agreement was signed in the presence of 150 city administrators, university administrators, researchers, representatives of municipal institutions and other partners, and the press.
Academic excellence and practical relevance
The aim of Smart Port is to strengthen the regional economy by better matching the supply and demand of knowledge. Incidental questions posed to the EUR by the business community and government had grown into a need for deeper and more structural cooperation on port-related issues. This cooperation has now been given shape in the Smart Port agreement.
Smart Port will focus on the integration of Knowledge Exploration and Knowledge Exploitation with regard to maritime and port-related issues. Knowledge Exploration focuses on the development and execution of a research agenda and a regular multidisciplinary education portfolio within Erasmus University Rotterdam. Knowledge Exploitation constitutes post-experience education and contract research and consultancy.
Organisation at EUR
In Smart Port, five Schools of Erasmus University are united: Rotterdam School of Management (RSM), the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), the Faculty of Social Sciences (FSS), the Rotterdam Institute for Shipping & Transport Law (Erasmus School of Law-ESL) and the Faculty of History and Arts.
A central element in the Erasmus Smart Port-initiative is the appointment of so-called ‘Port Professors’ in four faculties of EUR, with the task of combining forces within their own faculty, encouraging cooperation with other faculties/research institutes and creating a network of excellence with relevant stakeholders from the academic and business community. This is extended with a fifth position taken up by the director of the internationally renowned Maritime Economics and Logistics (MEL) MSc programme.
