The  Maritime and Coastguard (MCA) needs your help to make sure our new services work well for the people who need them.

The MCA are developing digital ways to apply for a Certificate of Competency (CoC), book and manage an oral examination, and request and manage vessel surveys. We’re working with our research partners, Kerv Digital to carry out research on our behalf. 

To join up and take part, you must:

• be over 18
• be one or more of the following:
  • a seafarer cadet
  • a seafarer with a deck or engineering certificate of competency
  • a SMarT funded cadet
  • a vessel owner or operator

You don’t need to be good with computers or the internet to join.

Once you’ve signed up, you might be asked to:

• try out new online transactions
• talk to our researchers about how you’ve interacted with government in the past

Participation is completely voluntary and registering your interest does not commit you to taking part. Equally, registering your interest to take part does not guarantee that you will be asked to participate. You can always say no to an invite, and you can request that your contact details or survey responses are deleted at any time by emailing user.research@mcga.gov.uk

Oral examination research will take place in October and November 2025, and Certificate of Competency (CoC) and vessel owner research will take place from January to March 2026.

So that we can invite you to take part in research that is most relevant to you, we'd also like to collect some additional information about your role and certificate of competency.

Providing this information should only take a couple of minutes to complete.

Privacy information

The data controller for your personal information is the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA). The MCA will use the information you provide us for the purposes of user research only. The MCA will process your information on the lawful basis of consent, and you can withdraw your consent at any time by contacting user.research@mcga.gov.uk. The MCA will store your data for up to eight months if you consent to be contacted for this current research opportunity, and a maximum of two years if you agree to be contacted for future research opportunities. If you withdraw your consent, we will delete your data within 30 days.

Information on how the MCA looks after personal data, your rights, how to contact our data protection officer and how to complain about processing of your personal data can be found on our Personal Information Charter. For information on how Kerv uses your data, see Kerv's Privacy Notice. Please read these before completing this form, and continue if you are happy to take part in the research.