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Maritime Heritage Maritime Futures launched in 2023, with the aim of giving young people a sense of ownership of and belonging in their maritime heritage, while also linking them to the exciting career opportunities in maritime today, as the sector embraces the challenge of decarbonisation.
The project centres around real-life team challenges for the students – designing a green vessel, planning a heritage event, creating an exhibition or a promotional campaign, and gives them opportunities to learn from professionals and leading companies who are dealing with the same challenges in the workplace, at a larger scale.
The Float Your Boat Challenge
- Engineering: students from sixth from colleges across the Liverpool City Region are working to design and build a small scale, sustainable cargo vessel, to be tested in June before a panel of experts from industry.
- Events: students from sixth form colleges and alternative education settings are planning and delivering events harnessing the Danny’s heritage for an audience of their choosing.
- Art and Design: students are creating images and graphics relating to the heritage of the waterways and the Danny for exhibition to the public.
- Business and Marketing: students are creating awareness raising campaigns on a number of topics relating to maritime in the region.
Get Involved: Industry
We are already working with a number of maritime heritage and industry organisations, who are sharing what they do professionally with the students, giving them a picture of what the professionals do, and what the young people could do in the future. Would your company like to join the community?
- Canal and River Trust
- Cammell Lairds
- Mersey Maritime
- Svitzer
- Maritime 2050
- National Museums Liverpool
- Safeguard Engineering
- Maersk
- Peel Ports
- KS Composites
Get Involved: Schools and colleges
- Sixth form and FE colleges: would you like to attend the showcase event and potentially get your students involved next year?
- Secondary Schools: We would like to inspire and engage students at a younger age. If you would like to talk to us about how this might work with your students, please get in touch.
- Students: We are setting up a youth group to advise us on what is working and how to take this project forward. We are starting with young people aged 16+ already engaged in the project. If you are interested, please get in touch.
Support Our 20/20 campaign
- The funding for the programme ends in 2025, but it is just starting to build momentum.
- We’re seeking committed local businesses to partner with us building the project to champion heritage, education, and community, and to connect a future generation with maritime.
- Our goal? £20,000, powered by 20 sponsors pledging £1,000 each, to drive this transformative campaign forward. Your support will directly fund educational outreach programmes, fostering meaningful skills and inspiring young people to forge career pathways in the maritime sector—all while deepening connections to the Liverpool City Region's wealth of maritime heritage.
Stakeholder and participant feedback
The Maritime Heritage Maritime Futures project has been tremendously enriching for our students. The Danny's remarkable history and innovative approach to delivering hands-on learning opportunities and high-level mentoring has introduced our students to all sorts of behind-the-scenes experiences, people, and insights they would never have had access to otherwise. The project has really engaged them in the challenges and opportunities around decarbonisation, and fired their enthusiasm and curiosity.
Dr Charuni Dissanayaka, STEM Lead, Hugh Baird College
Worth over £5bn a year, Merseyside’s Liverpool City Region's maritime economy represents an enormous opportunity to students who are exploring their career and academic options. I have no doubt that the Maritime Heritage Maritime Futures project will have laid the groundwork for many exciting and rewarding career pathways for the students who were lucky enough to take part.
Ruth Wood, Mersey Maritime CEO
This was an amazing opportunity. I have learned so much and met so many inspirational women in maritime. I didn't know anything about the sector at all before, and now it's made me wonder if I should change my career plans and become a woman in maritime myself!
Leah Edwards, Cronton College business student, 2024
