MAKEWAVES is an international multi-partner collaborative project bringing together six academic institutions and two commercial consultancies. Their objective is to overcome the inherent problems for long term research projects that don't naturally attract significant domestic funding, but which may ultimately lead to internationally accepted guidance for structural codes or standards.

This paper describes a unique design project devised to teach and apply technical skills in port design, but also in the practical cooperation between students in a realistic design project. The 4-week long project now involves students of up to 19 nationalities from 7-10 universities, and has been based each year on real design projects. Student teams of 8-10 per team have to deliver a realistic design to examiners from both academia and industry. The students select from a number of optional modules. No student can take all of them, so appreciation of the skills available within the team are important.