EARSC STRATEGY AND PARTNERSHIP
Looking toward the future we are upgrading the organizational and working practices to support and respond to the increased expectations of our membership, in particular:
- the recruitment of our Secretary General and the opening a Brussels office enabling the Association to develop our services together with our members’ ever-evolving needs. This opening of this new office is in line with European Industry’s ambition to closely work with the governing bodies of GMES and in particular to be associated closely with the work of the Bureau in charge of it. It will help strengthen relations developed with stakeholders particularly with DG Enterprise.
We have managed to carry forward the industry vision in several stakeholders meetings and events, namely “political lobbying to European Institutions” carrying the industry message and helping focus stakeholders on issues vitally important to the EO service industry issues, for example:
- meeting with Commissioner Günter Verheugen to discuss the status and evolution of GMES (with topics such as budget situation, governance, unfair competition, SME´s and FP funding, stakeholders or the participation of EARSC in program preparation activities)
- providing inputs to create synergies between our Earth Observation developments and developments in other sectors such as Navigation and Telecommunications at the ESA Integrated Applications Program
- showing the ESA-Service Support Environment as an opportunity for Earth Observation Industry
- supporting the Value Added Service Element at DOSTAG Meeting
- presenting EO service industry vision of how the industry is evolving their business and challenges they face at the Committee of the Regions
- participating at GMES Forum in Lille addressing industry requirements for the GMES-KOPERNIKUS Pre-Operational services, the governance and funding scheme.
EARSC OPERATIONS
Organizing the successful EARSC Workshop focusing on the Opportunities provided by GMES for the service industry. Thanks to the large, diverse and knowledgeable attendance a thorough survey of risks and opportunities for the development of the service industry has been conducted leading to a set of recommendations relayed to the EU to help in the preparation of their future call for proposals. Such recommendations relate to the four key areas which are Data Policy, Governance, Budget and Operations. Within the framework of the excellent collaboration between EARSC and European institutions regular exchanges and information days have been highlighted to be fostered during 2009.
EARSC working groups on External Relations and New Strategies are considered key structural elements within the association. The working groups met several times during the year planning specific deliverables for the WG tasks; providing key messages representing the EO service industry to ESA, EC and other stakeholders, focusing on business models taking into account users and the markets addressed or briefing of opportunities addressing service development in the different EO domains.
Please note that the above mentioned accomplishments would not be possible without the active participation from some members at EARSC meetings. For this reason, we would like to ask for the continued support of our members´ involvement in EARSC. The efforts of Board of Directors, officers and WG members are all geared to our main aim – to strength the European EO service industry.
EARSC will be celebrating its twentieth anniversary in 2009. Preparations for next year event, focused on governance, are already underway to commemorate this special occasion.
COMMUNICATIONS
We were also very pleased to see that more people are wanting to get involved to help reach our goals for 2009. Our website will become our key communication platform, planning to have a restricted area for members (“members zone”) using this new tool to interact with the board and other members so that members have an opportunity to provide input on possible issues that would affect our industry community. We ask that you continue to monitor developments through the Association’s website www.earsc.org as well as “eomag” our newsletter widely distributed to stakeholders