As Europe’s Forum for Innovation and Research in Earth Observation, FIRE aims to build a strong community and a well-defined, recurrent process that will help to capture the “now” and to shape the “tomorrow” of the European EO sector. To achieve this overarching objective, FIRE will nurture the coordinated exchanges between innovators, policy-makers, technologists, businesspeople and researchers, towards designing a long-term Research and Innovation Strategy that will guide the development, delivery and uptake of EO services for the benefit of economy and society. The practical steps to get there are reflected onto the 4 specific objectives: O1: Build a community of research and innovation actors with the mission to keep a finger on the pulse of different market sectors that can benefit from EO-services enabled value. O2: Foster the coordinated interaction between the identified EO and non-EO actors, through a series of events and on-line tools. O3: Develop and implement a collaborative and integrated European research and innovation strategy that will guide the development, delivery and uptake of EO services. O4: Maximise the impact of project activities through a well-defined and appropriate communications strategy and a robust sustainability plan. These objectives are tackled through a Four Pillar approach of Collecting background information and relevant sector actors; Conversing with these actors and EO sector experts to identify EO target market pain points and developing a roadmap to ameliorate these pains through uptake of EO technologies; Collaborating with the broad existing network of GEO and Copernicus initiatives to maximise EU funding efficiencies; and Communicating the results of these discussions within the target market sectors and beyond through an exciting online mechanisms (incl. dedicated YouTube channel ) and a cross-sectoral EO-Evangelist promotional campaign.

The EuroGEOSec project (led by ARMINES) brings together a European consortium built from the core group of the team involved in the H2020 e-shape (EuroGEO Showcases: Applications powered by Europe) project and will collaborate with the Joint Research Centre Knowledge Center on Earth Observation (JRC-KCEO) to support the EuroGEO vision and to prepare the transition of the EuroGEO initiative into a sustainable endeavour, by setting-up a EuroGEO secretariat. The overarching goal of the EuroGEOSec project is to support the coordination of the EuroGEO initiative and develop a sustainability plan guiding its long-term operation. This will be achieved by establishing the EuroGEO Secretariat with the mission to (i) strengthen GEO-related coordination mechanisms at European and national levels, (ii) support increased innovation, space application development and reinforcement of the European space data ecosystem concept; (iii) foster international cooperation to help stimulate the market and promote European technology and services; (iv) contribute to the European Green Deal objectives and the European strategy for data (EU Data Spaces) by further deploying and exploiting the use of EO towards a strengthened Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS). The project delivers the definition, set-up, operation and ramp-up of the EuroGEO Secretariat serving the EuroGEO initiative and its ecosystem of actors, and developing support services and a sustainability strategy that will inform the long-term operation of the EuroGEO initiative. Project url website: www.eurogeosec.eu

The UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development is a data driven agenda, and the use of Earth Observation (EO) can make the SDG indicators’ monitoring and reporting viable, technically, and financially, and comparable across countries. SDGs-EYES aims at boosting the European capacity for monitoring the SDGs based on Copernicus, building a portfolio of decision-making tools to monitor those SDG indicators related to the environment from an inter-sectoral perspective, aligning with the EU Green Deal priorities and challenges. SDGs-EYES will establish an integrated scientific, technological and user engagement framework overcoming the knowledge and technical barriers that prevent the exploitation, combination and cross-feeding of data and tools from the Copernicus’s six core Services, its space-based and in-situ components, and other platforms and portals. SDGs-EYES considers three interconnected SDGs, on climate (SDG13), ocean (SDG14) and land (SDG15), to demonstrate through four Pilots the Copernicus potential for monitoring six indicators making part of the EU and national assessments: GHG emissions, temperature deviation, ocean acidification, marine eutrophication, forest cover change and soil erosion. Although focusing on the biosphere, these indicators are linked to other SDGs on socio-economic and (geo)political factors (e.g., human health, resources security, poverty, conflicts, displacements). Thus, an additional cross-goals indicator and Pilot will focus on vulnerable communities under cumulative climate extreme hazards. SDGs-EYES seeks to combine the science-informed (top-down) approach with a stakeholder-driven (bottom-up) approach to transfer scientific outcomes into easy-to-understand and easy-to-use actionable information in the context of SDG indicators’ assessment. Decision-making tools delivered by Pilots will be co-designed with users, to offer opportunities to regularly assess and refresh methodologies they adopt for monitoring and reporting.

The overall objective of CopHub.AC is to create a knowledge and innovation hub with several nodes (secretariat, research briefs, knowledge landscape, outreach, sustainability) to focus and link ongoing R&D activities in Copernicus-relevant academic fields, and to sustain the innovation process from academia to businesses on the highest possible scientific and technical level, with a clear commitment to a full thematic and geographic coverage for a Europe-wide boost in space uptake. The CopHub.AC consortium led by PLUS / Z_GIS will provide the following objectives: i) foster the enlargement of the Copernicus Academy ecosystem through a well-orchestrated set of tools and structures; ii) reinforce the R&I capacities of Copernicus Academies and channel their outputs within an improved format of research briefs; iii) inform industry, educational networks, authorities and the citizen about Copernicus and its societal benefits. iv) promote capacity building of and connectivity with the Copernicus Relays Network; v) promote the long-term impact and sustainability of the Copernicus Academy network through the establishment of a secretariat, a monitoring process and a forward looking roadmap. A duration of 24 months is envisaged. During the second year, the EC will be provided with recommendations for the continuation of the activities under long-term funding.

ConnectinGEO’s primary goal is to link existing coordinated Earth Observation networks with science and technology (S&T) communities, the industry sector and the GEOSS and Copernicus stakeholders. The aim is to facilitate a broader and more accessible knowledge base to support the needs of the GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) and their users. A broad range of subjects from climate, natural resources and raw materials, to the emerging UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) will be addressed. A tangible outcome of the project will be a prioritized list of critical gaps within the European Union in observations and the models that translate observations into practice-relevant knowledge. The prioritized list will include the research activities required to address these gaps. Ultimately, this will increase coherency of European observation networks, increase the use of Earth observations for assessments and forecasts and inform the planning for future observation systems through a sustainable approach that will survive beyond the end of this project. ConnectinGEO has 4 major objectives: a) Enable a European Network of Earth Observation Networks (ENEON) including space-based, airborne and in-situ observations networks. b) Provide a methodology to convert the knowledge needs into a coherent observation and measurement compendium for ENEON strategy and development. c) Apply the ConnectinGEO methodology to identify and assess the priority of gaps. d) Open the results of the project and exploit them beyond the project end.