BIMCO, in close collaboration with ITS Norway and the DYNAPORT project, convened a two‑day industry workshop in Copenhagen to explore how the maritime sector can accelerate the harmonisation of digital interfaces across ship to shore stakeholders.
Bringing together 45 representatives from shipping companies, ports, authorities and solution providers, the workshop provided a neutral forum, held under the Chatham House Rule, for open discussion on one of the most pressing challenges in maritime digitalisation: achieving practical interoperability at scale.
From ambition to implementation
The discussions centred on three interconnected themes shaping the future of maritime digital exchange:
- Business value as a driver for adoption, focusing on how clear commercial benefits can accelerate convergence around digital solutions
- Alignment of data and systems, including information payloads, semantics and transport mechanisms needed to enable interoperability
- Trust in a global ecosystem, addressing identity, authentication and governance across multiple stakeholders and jurisdictions.
Across these themes, there was strong consensus that while significant progress has been made in defining frameworks and standards, the core challenge now lies in consistent implementation.
Three key conclusions
The workshop highlighted three critical insights for the industry:
- The IMO Compendium as the semantic foundation
Participants consistently recognised the IMO Compendium as the essential reference point for maritime digitalisation. It provides alignment on definitions and meaning, acting as a common language across stakeholders. However, it is not intended to serve as a technical or operational blueprint.
- Federated architectures as the most viable path forward
Rather than pursuing centralised platforms, the industry is converging on federated approaches. These enable existing systems to interoperate while preserving flexibility, allowing stakeholders to connect without the need to replace established solutions.
- Trust frameworks are critical to scaling data exchange
Secure, scalable international data exchange depends on robust approaches to identity, authentication and trust. This must be underpinned by clear governance structures and strengthened international coordination.
Bridging the implementation gap
A key takeaway from the workshop was that the maritime sector is no longer struggling to define what data should be exchanged. Instead, the challenge has shifted to how existing standards are applied consistently across regions, sectors and technology providers.
Fragmentation persists at the implementation level, limiting the ability to scale solutions globally. Participants agreed that overcoming this requires a more coordinated and practical approach—one that focuses on applying shared principles rather than prescribing a single standard or system.
In this context, future ship to shore data exchange is unlikely to rely on one unified solution covering both semantic and technical interoperability. Instead, progress will depend on principle‑based harmonisation, supported by:
- Common semantic references, with the IMO Compendium as the cornerstone
- Agreed implementation principles to guide solution development
- Coordinated governance at international level.
Towards “Golden Rules” for maritime digitalisation
To move from broad alignment to consistent action, the workshop supported the development of a short, principle‑based industry declaration [LINK TO DECLARATION]
The Golden Rules for Maritime Digitalisation
This initiative aims to provide a shared, high‑level reference for stakeholders across the maritime ecosystem, helping to guide decision‑making and promote more consistent implementation of digital solutions worldwide.
By anchoring efforts in practical principles rather than prescriptive standards, the industry can accelerate interoperability while maintaining the flexibility needed to support innovation and diverse operational contexts.
