Methods used
Understanding the alignment of Iliad pilots and services with relevant policies is essential for assessing their regulatory impact and ensuring compliance with existing legislative frameworks. To achieve this, we first conducted a survey with pilot leads and end-users to grasp their understanding and connectedness to different European policies and UN Sustainable Development Goals. Thereafter, a systematic mapping of pilot objectives, expected outcomes, and implications was conducted against policy documents, using a customized Large Language Model (LLM) approach.
Forty-four relevant policy documents have been identified, derived from 22 distinct policies cited in a survey conducted with pilot leads and consortium members. The full list of documents used can be found here. Some policies, such as the European Green Deal, encompass multiple directives and communications rather than a single definitive document, which accounts for the doubled number of relevant documents. The current scope of analysis primarily includes Communications (Comm) and Directives (31 in total), with Regulations, Agreements, Strategies, and Guidelines still to be incorporated.
Policymakers can use this type of analysis to identify regulatory gaps and improve policy coherence across different maritime sectors. The insights can guide more targeted policy updates or the creation of new regulations that address emerging challenges in marine governance.
Results
The figures presented below illustrate different pilot-policy relevance heatmaps, each based on a distinct similarity metric.
Figure 1 shows a plot of Cosine Similarity Analysis that evaluates textual closeness between pilots and policies based on their descriptions and objectives, in Figure 2 we show the Contextual Matching Heatmap that presents numerical scores reflecting the contextual alignment of each pilot with a set of key EU policies, while in Figure 3 we provide the SimHash-Based Similarity Matrix (Hamming Distance) that provides an alternative similarity measure, highlighting document structure and content overlaps.
While the color scheme requires further harmonization, the numerical results remain consistent across different methods. These results will later be consolidated into thematic sectors for deeper analysis.
The customized LLM-based approach reveals several important correlations. Certain pilots exhibit strong relevance across multiple policy documents, indicating their broader regulatory and governance implications.
The heatmap visualizes the similarity relationships between various project pilots/services and key European policy documents, using a SimHash-based approach that measures their textual and conceptual alignment via Hamming distance. This analysis provides strategic insights into the broader regulatory and governance implications of these pilots, identifying areas where strong policy alignment exists and highlighting potential gaps where regulatory frameworks may need to evolve.
Several pilots, such as "Water Quality - Plastic Pollution", "Biodiversity - Seascape Ecology", and "Oil Spill - Thracian Sea", exhibit strong correlation with policies related to the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD) and the EU Biodiversity Strategy for 2030. This indicates that these pilots are well-aligned with marine conservation and pollution mitigation frameworks, reflecting their direct contribution to European environmental objectives.
The “Wind Energy Maintenance” and “Tidal Energy” pilots show relatively high similarity to the European Climate Pact and Innovation in the Blue Economy Roadmap, signifying their relevance in renewable energy transition and climate resilience strategies.
Some pilots, such as "Cultural Heritage - Israeli Coast", display relatively weaker alignment across multiple policy dimensions. This suggests that certain governance frameworks, such as Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) or Strategic Guidelines for EU Aquaculture, may not comprehensively address cross-sectoral issues like marine cultural heritage. Similarly, “Ship Routing / Harbor Safety” has moderate to weak alignment with key maritime governance policies, suggesting potential regulatory gaps in safety, efficiency, and emissions reduction in maritime transport or that further analysis needs to be conducted to fully understand the policy implications and connections.
Emerging Cross-Sectoral Insights
The intersection of aquaculture, fisheries, and marine spatial planning (MSP) is particularly evident, as pilots related to "Aquaculture - Italy," "Fisheries - North Sea," and "Ballast Water Monitoring" demonstrate notable connections with the Water Framework Directive (WFD), MSP Directive, and Sustainable Development of Aquaculture policies. This suggests an increasing focus on integrated marine governance, where ecosystem-based management (EBM) principles are being actively reinforced through policy frameworks. In this respect, many Iliad services, particularly in aquaculture and fisheries, align with multiple policies, indicating a high regulatory burden. Future reforms should balance compliance requirements with innovation incentives, ensuring that sustainability goals do not hinder economic viability.
The presence of both strong and weak alignment areas underscores the necessity for further integration of digital monitoring tools (DTOs) into policy implementation.
The FuelEU Maritime Regulation and Maritime Transport Action Plan have comparatively lower similarity scores with pilots focused on emissions monitoring and ship safety. This suggests that maritime decarbonization efforts may require enhanced regulatory adaptation to emerging DTO-driven monitoring solutions.
Policies such as the Better Situational Awareness for Maritime Surveillance show moderate alignment across multiple pilots, reinforcing the growing emphasis on real-time monitoring and data-driven governance.
Based on the observed policy-pilot alignments, here are key strategic insights for future governance. There is an opportunity to enhance coordination across different marine sectors (e.g., linking biodiversity, fisheries, and renewable energy policies into a unified governance approach). Moreover, emerging areas require a policy evolution. For instance, policymakers should anticipate the need for new regulatory instruments that address climate-driven changes in marine environments. Climate resilience, digital maritime monitoring, and ocean-based carbon sequestration are not explicitly covered by existing policies. While the Maritime Spatial Planning Directive (MSP) integrates climate-smart trends into spatial planning, it does not explicitly focus on digital monitoring systems or carbon sequestration potential within marine ecosystems. Similarly, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and blue carbon ecosystems, such as seagrass meadows and salt marshes, are acknowledged for their mitigation role but are not fully incorporated into regulatory frameworks beyond the 30% protection target set under EU biodiversity strategies.
Regarding digital maritime monitoring, the EU has introduced regulations such as the FuelEU Maritime Regulation, effective from 2025, which requires ships over 5,000 gross tonnage to monitor and gradually reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. However, this framework primarily focuses on compliance with emissions targets rather than real-time, large-scale digital monitoring that could enhance climate adaptation strategies for maritime and coastal activities.
