A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Industry has a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available. This will help inform ESA on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development. It will enable EARSC to represent the industry in the most effective way.
A web-based questionnaire is being sent to all companies believed to be active in providing or using geo-information containing some satellite data. All European and Canadian EO service providers identified by the study team will receive an email notification from EARSC via Survey Monkey which will enable them to access the EO Survey.
The web-questionnaire will be followed by a limited number of phone interviews. Whilst the first is very focused on figures the second will be more subjective and opinion-oriented and we estimate will take 30 to 45 minutes. We would like as many companies as possible to complete both surveys and ask for your support in doing so.
Active participation by the EO service industry is critical to ensure that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current industry status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the industry; therefore to have a clear picture about our sector!
Thank you very much for your active participation, EARSC secretariat.