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Learning from the Past

Mobilising maritime heritage for a safer future.

How can learning from the past help create a safer, more sustainable maritime future?

The global maritime system is complex, rapidly evolving, and essential to sustaining societies across the world. It is also intensely vulnerable to fluctuations in the environment and in geo-politics, and to industrial and economic changes.

Our centre safeguards a rich knowledge library on the evolution of maritime technology since the 1760’s - we think it is vital to use this to understand how we can help address the complex and urgent challenge to create a safe and sustainable ocean economy.

Our heritage centre holds a rich knowledge repository of maritime technology. The ‘Learning from the Past’ programme draws on this to help us to better understand the safety challenges of transitions in the ocean economy, and by connecting evidence and insight with those who can make real changes happen. The programme is for people and organisations who shape, study or are affected by the maritime and ocean sectors; for those who can and want to use information from the past to inform safer, more sustainable maritime futures.

Why does this matter?

The Learning from the Past programme matters because the volume of goods transported by sea is greater than ever and new maritime industries, such as offshore renewable energy, are growing rapidly.

Disruptions to this activity have far-reaching consequences to the security, health, and safety of communities across the world. At the same time, healthy oceans are critical to tackling climate change but even as zero-carbon shipping initiatives develop, so too does industrialised activity intensify, and stress on the ocean environment increases. Economic and environmental factors mean that coastal communities, especially in the developing world, are at risk of displacement and dislocation.

The problems facing the maritime industry and the ocean systems are complex, and urgent; using our unparalleled bank of knowledge and insights from the past means we can be uniquely placed to inform practical, sustainable, innovative maritime solutions. Tangible evidence such as remains of coastal settlements, shipwrecks and historical records tell a story about our past interactions with the oceans and how current assumptions and attitudes have been shaped. Intangible evidence such as cultural practices, local skills and traditional knowledge can represent a very different source of insight and perspectives on more sustainable futures.

Louise Sanger Head of Research, Interpretation & Engagement

Learning from the past is not about nostalgia; it is about responsibility. Building on experience to inform wiser choices, avoid repeating harm, and to help shape safer, more resilient futures.

How will it mobilise heritage for a safer future?

We will help engineer a safer future through lessons learned from the past.

Learning from the past is not a new idea – a lot of great work has already been done. We believe that by building on existing partnerships and working with new partners we can bring existing evidence and insight to the attention of those that can make change happen.

The Learning From the Past programme will use our heritage centre strategic themes to focus engagement with types of evidence that can help us to overcome the challenges that we face. These are understanding maritime disasters and their consequences, identifying underrepresented individuals in conventional narratives about our maritime past, and focusing on ships themselves as units for understanding historical technological transitions.

We will do this by working with academic experts and citizen scientists, with international institutions on complex regulatory issues and with custodians of traditional knowledge in coastal communities. We will show that a historical perspective engages new audiences and helps to create well-informed ocean citizens. The UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development has framed the importance of solution-orientated, collaborative research and knowledge development – this is the time to contribute lessons from the past to global efforts to secure the future we want.

From its creation, Lloyd’s Register was deeply involved in all of the key maritime engineering transitions and how safety across the system was reshaped. Now we will draw on that heritage to help create a safe, sustainable maritime economy that operates on a healthy ocean.