LeaderSHIP 2015: the EU's response to shipbuilding's challenges
The EU gives a coordinated response to the new competitive challenges of the European shipbuilding sector.
The Leadership 2015 initiative has been carried out in an effort to give a coordinated response to the new competitive challenges of the European shipbuilding sector. It takes into consideration the high-tech nature of this sector and the substantial investments made by yards on research, development and innovation.
Europe 's competitive advantage has been and will continue to be based upon its ability to construct the most advanced vessels. And they bear witness to the fact that European shipyards are genuine engineering power-houses. The high-tech nature of the shipbuilding industry is further underlined by the fact that yards, on average, invest more than 10% of their turnover on research, development and innovation.
The LeaderSHIP 2015 initiative 
[223 KB] is the EU shipbuilding industry's response to the competitive challenges it is facing. It is designed to address all important issues for the competitiveness of this industry sector. In high-tech industry sectors such as shipbuilding, success is first of all based on knowledge: with regard to knowledge-based economic activities, LeaderSHIP 2015 provides a sector-specific response to the EU's longer term strategy for economic, social and environmental renewal. It aims to foster the competitiveness of the EU shipbuilding industry, by providing the tools for this industry to improve research and innovation among other items.
Dedicated chapters for each of the key areas describe the challenges and spell out concrete recommendations. These areas are:
- Establishing a Level Playing Field in World Shipbuilding
- Improving Research, Development and Innovation Investment
- Developing Advanced Financing and Guarantee Schemes
- Promoting Safer and More Environment-Friendly Ships
- A European Approach to Naval Shipbuilding Needs
- Protection of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR)
- Securing the Access to a Skilled Workforce
- Building a Sustainable Industry Structure
In 2007 the Commission issued a first progress report on LeaderSHIP 2015 [109 KB] .
