Description
How come we wrote a book? I guess this is what you ask yourself when a large manuscript is ready for print. I have seen colleagues write textbooks a number of times during my years as a university teacher. Each time I have concluded that book-writing is a very large and time-consuming challenge and I have promised myself that I will never do it. Still—now the book is obviously there, and in some way it has happened. One conclusion is that you should not try to write a book on your own—the combined work of a group is what drives the work forward, increases quality, and provides challenging discussions. This book is really a cooperative project that has grown more or less by itself, although I do not know if we all tell the same story of how it started.
The writing process was initiated by the need for a textbook to be used in courses at the department of Shipping and Marine Technology. Furthermore, we had a need to meet the demand of providing information and answering questions from shipping companies and authorities. Before starting the main work, we had the opportunity to perform a “verification project” where we made a survey of need in target groups among students as well as in the shipping industry.
A book on shipping and the environment will involve a large number of disciplines and competences. The diversity in research focus and expertise of the people working at the department of Shipping and Marine Technology at Chalmers and at the department of Law at Gothenburg University was a good starting condition. The authors come from many different scientific backgrounds; engineers of different disciplines, marine scientists as well as scientists working with legal research, and we have all learnt a lot from each other during the project. The efforts in writing texts as well as in reading and discussing other author’s text are greatly acknowledged. Thanks to all my co-authors.
There are also a number of people who have been reading parts of the text and been providing specific expertise and input. Thank you all.
Special thanks to my co-editors, Selma Brynolf, Fredrik Lindgren, and Magda Wilewska-Bien, for their never-ending patience and ambition in making the manuscript consistent and correct and also in gently reminding the rest of us that it is time to deliver. You are the heroes of the book project.
Important prerequisites for the book have been the Lighthouse maritime competence centre and the Chalmers Area of Advance Transport. The Lighthouse funding for senior scientists and doctorate students as well as the contribution to funding of senior scientists from the Area of Advance has given us the possibility to work on the manuscript. In the “verification project”, we got practical support and funding by Innovationskontor Väst (Chalmers Innovation Office).
So, finally, when summer is over and the autumn storms are approaching the Swedish west coast, the manuscript is ready for print. We all hope that it will turn out to be useful to the readers and contribute to make shipping at least a little more sustainable.
Gothenburg Karin Andersson
September 2015