###### Abstract
Although the exact number of autonomous ships worldwide is not readily available due to the ongoing development and deployment of this technology, significant investments and pilot projects indicate a growing presence of autonomous vessels in the shipping industry. The market for autonomous ships is estimated to be worth United States dollar (USD) 3.9 billion in 2022 and is expected to reach USD 8.2 billion by 2030 [5; 6]  
The introduction of these ships into service will certainly lead to significant changes in the system of education and training of seafarers, as the ships will primarily be controlled from newly designed coastal centers. This will require new technical and organizational knowledge and skills from future seafarers or MASS operators, as well as from all maritime stakeholders. Several research and development projects have been carried out to develop MASS, e.g., Maritime Unmanned Navigation through Intelligence in Networks (MUNIN), ReVolt, the Advanced Autonomous Waterborne Applications Initiative (AAWA), Yara Birkeland and the e5-Asahi Tanker project [4; 7; 8]. MUNIN was a project funded by the European Commission to develop a concept for an autonomous dry bulk carrier [4; 7]. The ReVolt project aims to develop an autonomous 100 TEU container ship for short sea shipping. The AAWA project was launched to create a preliminary design for the next generation of advanced shipping solutions. The Yara Birkeland is the world's first totally electric container feeder ship, and the e5-Asahi Tanker project focuses on the development of renewable energy-powered commercial ships with a high level of automation [4]. As the application of the MASS concept poses significant legal challenges, a number of existing maritime conventions will be amended. In order to take a proactive approach, the IMO MSC proposed to conduct a regulatory scoping exercise (RSE) to determine how MASS can be incorporated into IMO instruments [9]. As part of the RSE, eight IMO conventions (including STCW) were selected for analysis [10]. The outcome of the RSE provides an assessment of the existing legal framework for MASS operations and guidance for future work in this area [11]. The article follows a systematic review methodology based on the PRISMA, a widely used and structured approach. We adapted PRISMA to answer specific research questions related to maritime training and education in the field of MASS. We used three major search engines, Scopus, WoS and Google Scholar, to identify relevant studies. Originally, the use of Google Scholar was not planned, but the inclusion of this search engine became necessary because valuable scientific papers are included in that database. The screening involved assessing the title, abstract and content of publications to exclude those that were not directly related to seafarer training or that focused more on automation than autonomous ships. The eligible studies were further analyzed to select the most appropriate for a comprehensive review. We read the publications and determined their relevance to the research. The final step consisted of a detailed analysis of the selected studies to answer specific research questions. For research question 1 (RQ1), we assessed the leading countries, leading authors, time periods and conceptual analysis through a bibliometric analysis of the scientific publications. In assessing the influence of each country, the researchers considered the total number of authors, which was weighted by the number of publications. For the historical analysis, the attention paid to the various topics of maritime education related to autonomous ships over time was determined. For research question 2 (RQ2), we focused on the common themes and categories in research studies on maritime education related to autonomous ships. We divided the studies into four categories:  
1. Maritime law and review studies;
2. Development and adaption of existing curricula;
3. Methods of training and techniques;
4.