July 5, 2021

Conference Under Sail North Sea (Stavanger, Norway – Antwerp, Belgium)

30.06 – 07.07.2016, Head of the Department of Economics and Business Administration of Sumy State University (SSU), Director of Institute for Development Economics under Ukrainian Ministry for Education & Science and National Academy of Science, Doctor of Economics, Professor Leonid Melnyk took part in an unusual seven-day scientific conference «Paths Forward Sustainable Development Gloals», which was held on the board of the sailing ship «Fryderyk Chopin» from district of Stavanger – Sandnes (Norway) to Antwerp (Belgium) in the North sea.

The two-mast ship (brig) expedition was organized in the framework of the Baltic University Programme (BUP). It was initiated and sponsored by the Swedish Uppsala University (Uppsala University), Finland Åbo Akademi University (Abo Academy University) and a group of Polish universities. The Polish side provided the ship with his crew (captain, first mate, he is also a navigator, boatswain and two deck officers, an engineer and a cook) for the voyage. By the way, the same summer ship this sail ship under the command of the same Captain (Dr. Bartlomiej Skwara) won last year’s regatta. Correspondingly, the representatives of these three parties acted as expedition leaders: Lars Österlund (Sweden) – Research Coordinator, Dominika Stygar) (Poland) – coordinator of work with sails, Sinikka Suomalainen (Finland) – organizer.

From the list of the crew it can be seen that the very same conference participants (35 teachers from 25 universities representing 11 countries) had to be sailors. No one but the participants on the board ensured her viability and managed the complex ship, which includes more than 30 sails (on each of six sailyards on two masts, as well as in the bow and amidships). In addition, it was necessary to be on duty in the kitchen (galley) and to carry out cleaning of the ship.

Usually, depending on the strength and direction of the wind, it was necessary to change the sails several times per day (put, remove, rotate). Once, it happened to do so several times during the night.

The sailors-teachers crew was divided into three watches, managing the deck 4 hours (including two night watches: 00⁰⁰-4⁰⁰ and 4⁰⁰-8⁰⁰). At the same time during the change of sails state all three watches appeared on the deck on alarm to ensure this complex operation.

During the watch all had enough work: take turns to navigate, monitor possible dangerous objects on the left and right side of the ship on course, to paint or polish the ship, etc. The work was carried out equally by all conference participants – from young teachers to conference leaders.

Though only 3-4 hours per day the participants can sleep, nothing could distract from the main thing – conference work: 2 hours before lunch and 2 – in the afternoon. The scientific debate and controversial roundtables dealt with the most pressing issues of sustainable development, “green” energy, water use sustainable, sustainable transport sustainable settlement, “green” economy and sustainable consumption, etc..

Prof. Leonid Melnyk made a report on the problems of “green” energy formation, which corresponds to the subject of the EU Jean Monnet project, headed by Prof. Leonid Melnyk.

One day, while sailing in the stormy sea for three hours the team had to change the position of the sails three times. The complexity and multifactor sustainability support of such man-made system, as the sailing ship, in the conditions of infinite variability of natural disasters was for the conference participants a clear illustration of the difficulties in achieving sustainable socio-economic development in the difficulties of human civilization existence.