Over the last decade the concept of clustering has become a central idea for analyzing the competitiveness of nations, industries and firms. This Web Page shows how the cluster concept can be usefully applied to the study of maritime activities.

Such activities, including shipping, shipbuilding and port and maritime services, are clearly geographically concentrated in a number of maritime clusters. However, these are having to compete with other uses of the coasts and oceans including capture fisheries, marine aquaculture, offshore energy and tourism. Sound governance and planning is therefore required to manage the competing claims for ocean space. This WEB page shows how competing industries and other stakeholders can cooperate and benefit from an integrated approach to the development of maritime clusters.

The contribution of approaches such as integrated coastal zone management and innovations such as ocean business councils, as well as coordinated networks of maritime clusters are reviewed.