Only 2% of the world’s maritime workforce is made up of women. Some merchant shipping companies tacitly ignore the female applications at the expense of the job applications filed by men. This information was announced during an international conference dedicated to the management of the differences in maritime profession. The forum held in Bulgaria’s coastal city of Varna is a result of the job done under the MENTORESS project under the Eurasmus+ programme for cooperation between the maritime academies of Turkey, Romania, Poland and Bulgaria. The project is orientated towards modernization of maritime university education and aims at increasing the number of women in maritime professions. Things have changed in Bulgaria over the recent years. Nearly 60% of the students at the Naval Academy in Varna are female, Vice-Rector of the academy Captain Kalin Kalinov says. In his words, the number of women working for the military fleet is much higher than the number of women employed at the commercial fleet, which is surprising.