IV Iberoamerican Congress of Naval Engineering—Summary

1. Dataset

The IV Iberoamerican Congress of Naval Engineering was held in Seville (3–5 October) and Ferrol (6–7 October). All the submissions of work developed by researchers, members of the various Iberoamerican navies, and sector companies were recorded and described, taking into account variables such as the work title, affiliation, country, scientific or technological domain, and number of authors, among others.

In summary, 101 works, corresponding to 41 different affiliations of 12 countries of America and Europe, were sent to the Congress. Among them, 27.72% were company submissions, and 5.94% were sent by navy personnel, whereas 66.34% of the overall works were sent by members of universities. In terms of countries, 55% of the works had Spanish affiliations, whereas the contributions of Colombia (14%), Peru (8%), and Brazil (8%) were also high. Moreover, the participation of countries such as Chile and Panama was also significant.

2. Affiliation Study

Figure 1 shows the number of contributions corresponding with each of the different affiliations or academic, military, or corporate institutions that participated in the Congress, with 41 affiliations in total.

3. Countries

The most frequently represented country was Spain; we can deduce that this is due to the fact that the Congress was located in different Spanish cities (see Figure 2). It is worth mentioning the significant participation of Latin American countries such as Colombia, Brazil, Peru, Chile, and Panama, in that order.

We can observe a dependence between the country and the type of affiliation, as shown in Figure 3. In fact, the contribution of each country was different depending on whether the papers came from a university, navy, or company. Specifically, the Spanish contribution was about 60% in the domains of universities and companies, whereas the main contribution to the navy domain was from Colombia (67%). The Colombian contribution to the framework of papers sent by companies was also relatively high, while the number of works sent from Peruvian and Brazilian affiliations in the domain of universities was also remarkable.

4. Number of Authors per Document

Figure 4 also shows the number of authors corresponding to each of the different affiliations or academic, military, or corporate institutions that participated in the Congress. We can infer that the number of authors tended to be greater when papers were sent from universities (with a median number of authors equal to 4), followed by the works sent from navies (3.5 authors), and from companies (2.5 authors). Thus, the works tended to be more collaborative in universities than in navies and companies.

5. Subject Area

It is also important to mention the topics discussed within the framework of the Congress. Figure 5 shows the number of works involving each of the subject areas of the Congress. Three groups can be observed:

• A group composed of the four most frequent domains or subject areas: Shipbuilding, Ship Design, Renewable Energies, and Digitalization, which accounted for more than 75% of all contributions;
• A cluster composed of a unique subject corresponding to Maritime and Fluvial Transport;
• A group composed of three areas connected to Defense (5%), Fishing (4%), and Education (3%).

Thus, the focus of this Congress was mainly shipbuilding and all the new digital technologies involved.