Trump, tariffs and turbulence. 2025 was the year when geopolitical tensions shook the global economy, threatened globalization and made regionalization a key concept. Lighthouse produced a report linked to this situation – but of course much more besides. Below is a selection of what we did in 2025.

During the first half of the year, regionalization was increasingly discussed. Behind this were geopolitical tensions and a fragile global economy, further exacerbated by Trump’s tariffs and trade wars. So how did this affect Swedish companies and shipping? In the Lighthouse pre-study Regionalised supply chains and the impact on shipping, companies testify to a clearly growing willingness to move production and trade closer to their own markets. So far, however, it has mostly been talk and little action. Despite the trend toward regionalization, there are no indications that globalization will be completely replaced – international trade is still considered to offer too many advantages.

“Many hope that what is happening will blow over. What we see in the latest interviews is a kind of paralysis – companies do not dare make decisions about new factories, suppliers or markets as long as the future is so uncertain and nothing has really settled around tariffs and trade policy,” said Johan Woxenius, Professor of Maritime Transport Economics and Logistics at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, when the report was published in July.

Paralysis also characterizes shipping’s transition. According to a study by the British consultancy Houlder, many shipping companies are stuck in an “uncertainty dilemma”: a cocktail of stricter environmental requirements and unclear political signals leaves them without a stable basis for decisions in their transition efforts. Within the Swedish Transport Administration’s industry program Sustainable Shipping, run by Lighthouse, two studies were conducted that relate to what influences shipping companies’ choices of fossil fuels: Social relations influence over choices of alternative marine fuels and Voluntary climate targets and their impact on the use of LBG in shipping. The former shows that Swedish shipping companies’ choices of alternative fuels are not based solely on linear and rational decisions – social relationships and networks also play an important role. The latter takes a closer look at how voluntary climate targets and the mass balance principle – the method that makes it possible to mix fossil-free and fossil fuels while still counting them as green on paper – can increase the use of biogas and contribute to shipping’s transition.

“It works much like green electricity. This means that, for example, you can run a vessel on natural gas and count it as a green transport on paper because somewhere else in your fuel pool or system you are using biogas. This can be an important enabler since it is not possible to bunker biogas everywhere. The green molecules are simply not always in the right place,” said Desirée Grahn at IVL Swedish Environmental Research Institute when the study was published in December.

During the year, the importance of biogas for shipping’s transition has been highlighted in several other contexts, including by DNV, which noted, however, that the future of the maritime biofuel market depends on access to sustainable biomass. Previous Lighthouse research has shown that this could be a good business opportunity for Sweden, as the country could in principle become self-sufficient in biogas.

Digitalization and automation are, of course, a key part of the development toward the shipping of the future. During the year, Lighthouse published five reports in this area:

• Smart Ships – Description of a possible way forward for Sweden
• DEMOPS – Develop Machine Learning Methods for Operational Performance of Ships
• Physics-informed grey box modelling of ship dynamics
• Large Language Models (LLMs) in Maritime Data Analysis and Decision Support
• On Predictive Maintenance for the Maritime Sector Using AI-Based Analysis of Partial Discharge

The fifth report describes how blackouts – total power failures on board ships – can be prevented through early detection of wear in a vessel’s electrical system. This is enabled by measuring partial discharges in the system.

“Measuring partial discharges in itself is nothing new. What is new, however, is how we use AI and machine learning to interpret the measurement data – to understand where the discharges occur, what causes them and how they develop over time. That is where the innovation lies,” said Lucas Finati Thomée at DNV when the report was published in April.

At the beginning of the year, the European Maritime Safety Agency (EMSA) and the European Environment Agency (EEA) stated in a report that major investments in research and innovation are crucial if shipping is to reach the EU’s climate and environmental goals. The same message, from a Swedish perspective, is conveyed in NRIA Shipping 2025, the national agenda for maritime research and innovation developed under the leadership of Lighthouse. The agenda, which was handed over to Minister for Infrastructure Andreas Carlson during Almedalen Week, is backed by leading stakeholders from industry, academia and authorities. In the autumn, the agenda was presented in the Swedish Parliament by Andreas Bach, who succeeded Åsa Burman as Executive Director of Lighthouse.

Before that, Åsa Burman moderated Research and Innovation Meet, which was held for the first time during Donsö Shipping Meet in September.

“The transition does not happen by itself – it requires collaboration, knowledge and courage. This is our way of bringing forces together,” she said when the new forum was launched in June.

During the year, both Åsa Burman and Andreas Bach moderated a number of seminar days and webinars organized by Lighthouse. In March, as usual, the annual Sustainable Shipping conference was held at Lindholmen in Gothenburg. Research subsequently published within the industry program was presented at the webinar Sustainable Shipping – Collection Heat in December. In addition, the webinar Safe Large-Scale Hydrogen Bunkering was held in January, the seminar day Maritime Safety in Focus – Who Does What and Who Decides in May, and the seminar day Shipping in the Marine Environment in October.