Firstly, Mr. Ratier, mainly for our readers outside of Europe, can you give us a picture of EUMETSAT, what you do and what is your mission?

EUMETSAT was created in 1986 as an intergovernmental organisation to establish, maintain and exploit European systems of operational meteorological satellites. We currently operate four geostationary Meteosat satellites and two polar-orbiting Metop satellites, and we are partners in the Jason-2 ocean altimetry mission exploited jointly with NOAA, NASA and CNES.

We establish user and system requirements for new generation satellite systems that are then developed with ESA, based on a proven cooperation model. The way this works is that ESA develops the first satellite in a series and procures recurrent satellites on our behalf, while EUMETSAT procures all launch services, develops and procures all the ground systems required to control the spacecraft, acquire and process their data and deliver products to users. In the end, we integrate, test and validate the full system and “maintain and exploit” it over 15 to 20 years to deliver data services to users, our “raison d’être”. This requires continuously upgrading our ground segments to eliminate obsolescence, keep efficiency at the highest level and expand our portfolio of products in response to evolving user needs, capitalizing on the latest advances of remote sensing science and our cooperation with other satellite operators. Overall, EUMETSAT bears typically 80% of the cost of a multi-satellite programme with the remaining costs being covered by ESA. More than 80% of our budget goes to industry through EUMETSAT, ESA and joint contracts.

In 2000, the founding convention of EUMETSAT was expanded to include climate monitoring and the detection of climate change. The rationale was synergy and efficiency: modern meteorology and climate monitoring both require global observations of the atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surfaces, which means that our satellite systems, ground infrastructure and know-how are assets not just for meteorology, but also for cost-efficient monitoring of the climate. The amended convention also introduced the possibility of optional and third party programmes, in addition to our Meteosat and the EUMETSAT Polar System (EPS) programmes, and this paved the way for our involvement in Jason and Copernicus

EUMETSAT

In your time as DG of EUMETSAT, what has been the greatest challenge which you have encountered?

I became Director-general on 1 August 2011, one month after the approval of a very ambitious Meteosat Third Generation programme, when the financial crisis of 2008-2009 had turned into an economic/debt crisis hitting most of EUMETSAT’s Member States. In this context, my main challenge was to gain unanimous approval of the EPS-Second Generation (EPS-SG) Programme, and to convince Bulgaria, Estonia, Iceland and Lithuania to join EUMETSAT at a time when financial contributions were ramping up with MTG and EPS-SG. This required a robust, quantitative demonstration of the socio-economic benefits of EPS-SG and containing programme costs whilst fulfilling agreed requirements.

The second challenge was to establish the role of EUMETSAT in Copernicus, and, in this framework, to assure the continuity of the Jason altimetry mission, in cooperation with the USA. We also launched two satellites in 2012, MSG-3 and Metop-B to secure service continuity from both orbits for another 5 to 10 years.

Formed in 1986 as the operational agency for Europe’s meteorological satellites, EUMETSAT now plays a strong role internationally, how significant is this role for EUMETSAT?

This leverages substantial additional benefits to our Member States and users worldwide. Weather and climate have no borders and need to be observed frequently and globally from space, which calls for an international effort to coordinate satellite systems, share data, know-how and best practices, under the umbrella of the World Meteorological Organisation. This is orchestrated by the Coordination Group for Meteorological Satellites (www.cgms-info.org) of which EUMETSAT serves as the permanent secretary. CGMS sets the multi-lateral framework for the bilateral cooperation that we have established with satellite operators of China (CMA and SOA), India (IMD and ISRO), Japan (JMA and JAXA), Russia (Roshydromet), South Korea (KMA) and the USA (NOAA and NASA).

We share satellite systems with the USA. EPS is part of an integrated Joint Polar System with NOAA, based on sharing of orbits, exchange of instruments and interoperability. Likewise, Jason-2/-3 is shared with NOAA, NASA and CNES. This reduces costs on both sides and the value to users is more than the sum of the respective contributions. We also coordinate observing systems with China and exchange data with all partners, to provide third party data services to our own users, thus expanding our product portfolio at marginal costs.

We are also an active member of the Committee of Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), which we chaired in 2014, and we support GEO, mainly through the contribution of our EUMETCast data broadcast service to the GEONETCast worldwide real-time dissemination system involving also NOAA and CMA. Thus our data are accessible to users in the Asia Pacific Region.

In the context of Copernicus, EUMETSAT is a member of “Europe’s team” with ESA and the EU and we support the Commission in space dialogues with all countries where we have formalised partnerships.

We also have a long established partnership with Africa, including agreements with the African Union Commission, to support EU-funded capacity building initiatives, through the delivery of data access by EUMETCast-Africa and user training.

EUMETSAT has become increasingly involved in issues linked to climate change, how does this affect the day to day operations of the organisation?

METEOSAT

The Meteosat satellites have been collecting observations since the late seventies, building up one of the longest climate data record collected by satellite. This creates opportunities and obligations! Our climate activities focus on data rescue, re-calibration and cross-calibration of historical data, reprocessing of physical and geophysical products into long Climate Data Records, validation and international coordination. As part of a pan-European effort to develop climate services, we have developed methods for assessing the maturity of Climate Data Records from a user perspective, to stimulate their wider use in climate research and services, and prepare ourselves to support the Copernicus Climate Change Monitoring Service (C3S).

Our activities also involve our network of Satellite Applications Facilities and are embedded in international cooperative projects involving users, research organisations and service providers.

We also continuously upgrade our IT infrastructure to facilitate fast access to and frequent reprocessing of large volumes of historical data and have designed our future MTG and EPS-SG processing systems to allow maximum flexibility in this respect.

Your main shareholders, the national meteorological offices fund the procurement of new satellites which are tuned to respond to their specific needs through the EUMETSAT operating agency. Can you briefly outline the planning and budgeting process in EUMETSAT?

Eumetsat Member States

Our shareholders are our 30 Member States, not their national meteorological services. The latter are certainly a major source of requirements – although not the only one – but cannot fund multi-billion satellite systems. EUMETSAT operates on the basis of multi-satellite programmes approved by its Member States. For a mandatory programme, like MTG or EPS-SG, the planning process starts with the definition of user requirements, followed by phase 0/A/B activities conducted at system level by EUMETSAT and at space segment level by ESA.

This leads to decisions of our Council on the instruments and satellites to be developed by ESA, and ultimately on a fully detailed programme proposal, including costing and financial planning over typically 25 years. This proposal requires unanimous approval by our 30 Member States, each of them funding the approved programme pro rata its Gross National Income. Then, annual budgets are approved by a qualified majority (two thirds of contributions, one half of Member States).

DATA DISSEMINATION SYSTEM & COPERNICUS

EUMETSAT delivers satellite data and products in real-time to users worldwide through EUMETCast. How is this working today and how do you see it evolving in the future given the expanding number of possible distribution channels, the availability of metadata and interoperability options and the rolling online archives

EUMETCast delivers to Europe, Africa and the Americas, and we also deliver to the Asia Pacific region through interoperability with China’s CMACast service. Today we deliver data, products and information from our satellite systems and other sources to 4250 low cost VSAT stations owned by more than 3300 registered users worldwide, with 99.9% availability, optimum bandwidth management and high flexibility on data content and volume delivered to individual users. The system is fully scalable to accommodate additional users and has no dependence on local network bandwidth. The migration to the DVBS-2 standard has divided costs by two and increased capacity through the procurement of the capacities of two full transponders from service industry.

EUMETCast Europe coverage @EUMETSAT

As regards the evolution, we have recently traded off various options and concluded that satellite broadcasting was the best solution for the safe and reliable delivery of time-critical data to a widely distributed user community, and will probably remain so for a number of years. We will continue to trade-off possible options in the future, based on prototyping and pilot experiments with partners, considering cloud and big data technologies, in particular in the context of Copernicus, but with particular attention to IT security and service continuity requirements, considering that one purpose of our data is to save lives and to costs.

Our data can also be accessed through our EO Portal, and we are implementing rolling online archives to support Sentinel-3 and our own missions, also to allow recovery in case of local failure of a EUMETCast user station.

We comply with relevant standards for metadata and formats and have proposed interoperability options to ESA in 2013 that may need to be reconsidered in the context of the ongoing Copernicus ground segment studies.

Copernicus is a major programme for Europe in which EUMETSAT is playing a leading role. Can you describe what Copernicus means for you?

Members of the EU Council’s Space Working Party visit the Sentinel-3 control room

The Agreement signed with the EU on 7 November 2014 tasks us to operate the Sentinel-3 marine mission, the Sentinel-6 mission and its Jason-3 precursor, and the Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5 missions, which our Council agreed to implement as part of our MTG and EPS-SG satellite systems to save European tax payers’ money. This means exploiting more satellites, starting with Sentinel-3A in 2015, and more instruments on board our own MTG and Metop-SG satellites from 2020 onwards. This will expand our portfolio of ocean and atmospheric composition products and deliver to the users the benefits of an integrated data stream combining products from Copernicus and EUMETSAT missions, and also from missions of our international partners such as the US, China, India, etc…

How are you now preparing for the Sentinels (S3, S4, S5, S6) and for the distribution of the data which these will generate?

We are supporting ESA in the development of the Sentinel-3 ground segment and system, under a third party programme funded by Copernicus, and are preparing for operations in cooperation with ESA, starting in 2016.

For Sentinel-4 and Sentinel-5, our contribution to the development of the ground segment and system is fully embedded in our MTG and EPS-SG programmes and funded by EUMETSAT. The MTG and EPS-SG ground systems are designed and sized to support both Sentinel missions.

Data will be distributed through different channels, including our EO Portal and EUMETCast. EUMETCast-Europe will deliver Sentinel-3/4/5/6 data and products to any user equipped with a low cost (2 k€) standard terminal, in any EU or EUMETSAT Member State, and we are proud that this will create equal opportunities for all service providers and users, at a modest cost. The service will be presented and demonstrated to users on 11 September, at a Copernicus data access information day organised with the Commission and ESA, at EUMETSAT headquarters, in Darmstadt (www.eumetsat.int/marinestream). I hope we will have the pleasure to welcome a lot of EARSC members!

What challenges will your team have to deal with concerning the new instruments in terms of data processing and distribution?

The MTG and Metop-SG satellites will deliver one order of magnitude more data than the previous generation, and this undoubtedly raises challenges for the ground segments, but in essence this is not so different from what we experienced already when moving from the first to the second generation of Meteosat.

But the new development challenge for MTG and EPS-SG is that they are both based on two different satellites (MTG-I and -S, Metop SG-A and -B) to be exploited simultaneously and launched in sequence, two years apart. This means we will have to test, verify and validate two successive, very different versions of highly complex processing systems, optimising the allocation of our scientific and engineering resources. The generation of representative test data will also be, as usual, a significant challenge, in particular for the innovative sensors that have no in flight heritage, like the MTG Lightning Imager and the Metop SG-B Ice Cloud Imager.

For data distribution, we have set up a new Muti-Mission Dissemination System capable to handle a variety of channels and the architecture of EUMETCast-Europe is fully scalable. In preparation for the MSG-4 launch, we have already performed successful load tests for 4 MSG, 2 Metop and 2 Sentinel-3 data streams, and the system and services, as procured, can accommodate MTG and EPS-SG data streams in addition. Our new archiving system has also a scalable architecture to accommodate up to 200 PBytes, a level that we will not reach earlier than 2027.

Large smoke plume visible from massive Australian bushfires. The day-time Metop-A Natural Colour RGB (09/02/14 23:19 UTC) shows the smoke in cyan colour, and the night-time Infrared image on the right (10/02/14 11:39 UTC 3.7 channel) shows the very large fires as coloured hot spots – the key shows the temperature in Kelvin. For more information, read our article. Copyright: 2014 EUMETSAT

Will all users have the same level of data access? How can users place requests for data where satellite acquisition programming is required? Will all users have the same level of priority?

All users will have the same level of data access within the throughput capacity of our ground systems. Moreover we can already guarantee that EUMETCast-Europe cannot be saturated and will deliver an integrated data stream combining EUMETSAT, Sentinel-3 and third party data to all users. Copernicus and EUMETSAT data policies will apply to the respective data. Today, for EUMETSAT, all real time data are available free of charge to all users, except the highest resolution, highest frequency Meteosat imagery which is available for a fee for commercial use. All archived data are available free of charge to all users.

There will be no requests for programming satellite acquisition, because all our instruments provide continuous, repetitive and full swath coverage. Only the Flexible Combined Imager of MTG-I is programmable in two modes (full disc and rapid scan), but only one mode will be selected for each satellite in orbit, as required to support monitoring and nowcasting of high impact weather.

Clear skies over Europe as seen in an image taken by EUMETSAT’s Meteosat-10 geostationary satellite at 08:00 (UTC) on 10 March 2014. Copyright: 2014 EUMETSAT

INDUSTRY & PROCUREMENT

Turning to the question of the relationship between EUMETSAT and the private sector, industry has been a supplier of systems to EUMETSAT, are there also cases where industry already provides services?

We already procure launch, Launch and Early Orbit Phase (LEOP), communication and precise orbit determination services among others, and we now plan to procure an industrial support service for the integration and testing of the MTG ground segment and system. We also rely significantly on support of industry for operations, procuring spacecraft controller and user service support teams, maintenance and development support services. We have recently introduced frame contracts, in particular for scientific and engineering support for Sentinel-3 operations, for which five consortia have been selected to compete on subsequent work orders. Our policy is to use frame or service contracts instead of consultants whenever appropriate, and, since 2013, we procure consultancy support only from duly registered companies. More than 80% of EUMETSAT budgets go to industry.

How can industry strengthen the co-operation with EUMETSAT? What plans do you have to cooperate with private sector service providers?

Our role has clear boundaries: we are a business-neutral provider of data and support services with no involvement in applications or delivery of information services. Our only ambition is that our data creates the broadest range of opportunities. Therefore, we have no plans as such to cooperate specifically with private sector service providers, but our user service and help desk is open to all users, and we are open to meeting service providers – public and private – wishing to know more about our data and services. Our annual user conferences are also open to industry and their attendance is always significant.

Our procurement policy is open competition and value for money, and we wish to create maximum awareness of opportunities in industry. We therefore organise Information Days ahead of the release of each major ITT, and organise generic Industry Days in our Member States to inform on our procurement process and forthcoming opportunities. Our procurements are announced on a dedicated portal, called EUMITS

Do you have connections with companies which are innovating new products and services based on the products which you offer?

We have no partnership, but, given our upstream position in the value adding chain, we have a keen interest in information on new products and services derived from our data, by the public and the private sectors. Our user conferences and other professional events offer opportunities for relevant discussions and we are open to meeting aimed at understanding data requirements of companies.

What can we do to encourage or enable the industrial participation in the provision of services? How do you perceive the role of EARSC in this respect?

We need to facilitate access to data, information and computing, but I have sometimes the impression that the focus on infrastructure is exaggerated in Europe, and may mobilise disproportionate attention and investments in the EO area. It is equally important to create dynamic “ecosystems” involving research, universities and SMEs in order to stimulate innovation, attract students and ideas and set up services combining Earth Observation with other information. The role of EARSC is not easy, as this is by nature a competitive area among its members, more difficult to address than enabling infrastructure. But I think EARSC may look across Europe and elsewhere on best practices and critical factors for stimulating innovation and emergence of new information services. Also, having growth in mind, these services cannot target only the public sector. There must be some open space between Google-type companies and large space industry….

FUTURE

Finally, looking to the future;

How do you see EUMETSAT changing over the next few years?

Our MTG and EPS-SG programmes and our role in Copernicus are now established and I trust the Jason-CS programme can be approved in 2015. This means we have now to deliver these complex systems in cooperation with our partners, but also be prepared to exploit ten satellites in orbit from 2016 onwards. We have reorganised in 2013 to best use our human resources to face these challenges, we have constructed a new office building and are prepared for a moderate growth. But EUMETSAT will be 30 years old in 2016, and surely the transition to a new generation of engineers, scientists and managers is one critical objective that we share with others in the space sector.

What do you see as being the key evolution of services provided by EUMETSAT?

As we operate more complex satellite systems, we will deliver more and more multi-sensor and multi-satellite products and Climate Data Records, also in the context of Copernicus, where the synergy with our more capable missions is a unique asset. Our cooperation with China, India and the USA will also lead to more third party data services.

The way we deliver data services will certainly change in the future. We will respond to the “Big Data” challenge and offer more opportunities to a variety of value-adding chains. But we need to secure continuity of our critical data services to our Member States, and this operational requirement, together with IT security, cannot be underestimated.

At the end of the interview, here is the opportunity for your final thoughts and how your activities could contribute to the future development of the EO geo-information service sector?

As part of a general move in the meteorological community, EUMETSAT has adopted the Open Geospatial Consortium standard and will release a first pilot open Web Map Service. Subject to agreement by our Council, we may develop more advanced Web Services enabling the overlay of our numerical data with other geo-referenced information, to create more opportunities.

EDUCATIONAL VIDEO

BIO: Alain Ratier, EUMETSAT Director-General

Alain Ratier, EUMETSAT Director-General

Alain Ratier was appointed EUMETSAT’s fourth Director-General on 1 August 2011. His tenure so far has seen the launch of the third Meteosat Second Generation (MSG-3) and Metop-B satellites, the start of the development of the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) system and preparation of the next generation EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS-SG) programme. Under his leadership, the role of EUMETSAT in the EU Copernicus programme has been recognised and the organisation prepared for the operation of the Sentinel-3 and Jason-3 ocean satellites. He has also overseen the expansion of EUMETSAT’s membership, with Estonia, Lithuania, Iceland and Bulgaria becoming Member States in 2013-2014.

Between 2004 and 2011, Mr Ratier was Deputy Director-General of Météo-France.

Mr Ratier already played a part in shaping EUMETSAT as Director of Programme Development and Deputy Director-General between 1996 and 2004. During this time, he guided the development of the MSG and EUMETSAT Polar System programmes and EUMETSAT’s contribution to Jason-2. He also designed the process for establishing user requirements for future EUMETSAT programmes, starting with MTG.

From 1987 to 1996 Mr Ratier was a Programme Manager and subsequently Associate Director for Earth Observation Programmes at the French Space Agency (CNES). There, he contributed to the expansion of the French Earth observation programme to include atmospheric, oceanographic and climate sciences.

Mr Ratier’s career began at Météo-France in 1983, where he spent five years in research and development activities on modelling of the upper ocean and air-sea interactions and on data assimilation.

Mr Ratier graduated from the École Polytechnique in 1981. He was awarded an engineering diploma from the French National School of Meteorology and also holds a degree in oceanography from Paris VI University. He is a member of the French Marine Academy and the Air and Space Academy.

Mr Ratier is married with three children

©IMAGES – EUMETSAT

Firstly, can you give us a picture of Mercator Ocean and what you do?

Mercator Ocean is the French center for ocean monitoring and forecasting. We deliver a worldwide service providing three-dimensional digital information on the ocean state with real time bulletins and data for the past periods. We design, develop and run forecasting systems based on ocean numerical modelling fed by ocean observations, to describe the physical and biogeochemical states of the ocean at any time, above and beneath the surface, at global and regional scales: temperature, salinity, currents, sea surface height, thickness of ice, chlorophyll, nutrients…We are a privately-owned non-profit company, funded by five major French institutions involved in operational oceanography, our privileged users : CNRS (National Center of Scientific Research), Ifremer (French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea), IRD (Institute of Research for Development), Météo-France and SHOM (Hydrographic and Oceanographic Service of the French Navy). The staff counts about 60 people, we’re based in Toulouse in France, I am the Director General.

Mr Bahurel, could you tell us a bit about the history of Mercator Ocean, how your organization started and what is your mission?

Our story started 20 years ago, when a group of thirty or so scientists and oceanographers decided to achieve a common goal: the operational depiction and forecasting of the ocean, in the same way that a weather forecast depicts the atmosphere. And we set directly the ambition to the level of a worldwide coverage with a high-resolution capacity for monitoring eddies and current meanders. The idea was to take stock of continuous observation of the ocean by the altimetry satellites such as Topex/Poseidon (Fr/US) and the ERS series (European Remote Sensing, Europe), of research studies at the leading edge in numerical ocean modeling and data assimilation and of the first pilot models of forecasting systems. This ambitious concept of an operational oceanography system capable of real-time description and forecasting of the entire ocean, both in terms of surface and depth, was first expressed by the group in 1995 through the creation of the “Mercator project”, named after the Flemish cartographer of the sixteenth century who mapped the world, produced one of the very first atlases and bequeathed one of the most widely-used map projection systems to today’s oceanographers. I became “Mercator project” manager.

What has been the greatest challenge Mercator Ocean encountered?

In the beginning, I would say patience. From prototypes to prototypes, we had to wait 6 years until the first Mercator bulletin rolled off the production line in 2001! From that day, the dream of a real-time operational oceanographic system meeting the needs of users finally came true. The bulletin images published on Internet with 800 maps every week describing currents, temperature and salinity in the North and Equatorial Atlantic, from the surface to the bottom and up to two weeks ahead of time. It was a first step but still, we achieved the first objective to demonstrate the feasibility of operational oceanographic forecasting and this has led Mercator Océan to become a public interest group, funded by our current shareholders and the French Space Agency at that time (CNES). After the second essential step in 2005 (the first global model with a full coverage of the oceans and a resolution of ¼°, i.e.around 28 km at the equator), the deal changed and Mercator Océan started its European endeavor at the same moment when the European Union and its GMES programme (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security/ former Copernicus appellation), with the European Space Agency undertook to provide Europe with the capability for operational monitoring of the environment. This was ten years ago and another story was starting…

When I cast my mind back, I see that the greatest challenge was probably to balance at every step an uncompromising demand for scientific quality – which means patience and carefulness, and a strong determination for developing and delivering operational services, free quickly the data, secure the production, engage the users. I’m happy today to observe that “operational oceanography” in Europe has clearly found this balance and is known for this at the international level.

Can you describe briefly the main services which Mercator Ocean provides?

Mercator Ocean today proposes two levels of services:

• A highly qualified and customized oceanographic service, adapted to any user needing to receive regular or one-off ocean information in specific area at the right time, delivering tailor-made products, maps, or expertise.
• A scientifically qualified service “on the shelf”, i.e. an open and free access to the Copernicus Marine Service via a single point of entry, a dedicated portal that gives access to a catalogue of a more than a hundred oceanography products (Observations and Models) that are regularly updated and which cover the global ocean and six regional seas.

The first one was established with the creation of Mercator Ocean and, with its tailored approach, forms the foundations of our service driven by user needs.

The second one, driven by our EU Copernicus mission, is operational since May 2015, taking over from a long and successful demonstration phase since 2009 with the European “MyOcean” research projects (April 2009- March 2015), coordinated by Mercator Ocean. It was accessible in a pre-operational mode via the MyOcean portal having succeeded to gain almost 5000 subscribers worldwide, about 20% of which from the private sector.

The Copernicus Marine Service offers the guarantee of providing the latest scientific knowledge through a permanent dialogue with a community of specialists in operational oceanography, whether they be producers of data or experts.

Who do you consider are the main customers for these services?

Our service is voluntarily designed to be a “core” service, ie a service delivering generic information targeting a wide range of downstream applications. We take care of the complex transformation required to build a simple and consistent depiction of the ocean from the combination of multiple sources of information that are space, in situ observations and models, we assess the quality of this information, we simplify the access, and we stop here in the value chain: we leave to our users the value created by the customization of this generic information to meet the specific needs of their users.

Their application areas cover a wide scope of domains, from marine environment to living ressources, climate issues and short-term operational matters.

The first users of the Mercator Ocean “native” services are their 5 French funders and stakeholders, that are themselves involved in many different fields. Researchers, operators of public or commercial services, industrialists, academics, analysts and regatta competitors around the world also access personalised Mercator Ocean services. They are a few thousands living in about 100 different countries on the globe.

Setting up the Copernicus Marine Service for EU has confirmed and fostered this tendency with a strong uptake of users in all application areas of this ‘core’ information as soon as it is of quality and simple to access. But the major target of this service are these companies operating downstream services, making added-value services based on our core marine service, to the benefits of end-users. A few MyOcean users are belonging to the EARSC association for instance.

Open data is a very strong theme in European policy making at the moment, does Mercator adhere to this policy? Are all the products which you offer “free and open”?

You are right, the European Commission supports and encourages open data for a few reasons, two of which being directly linked to our domain:
1. public data has significant potential for re-use in new products and services and
2. more data openly available will contribute to discover new and innovative solutions addressing societal challenges. This is also the vision of the EC DG Growth that drives the Copernicus Services and the European Delegated Act on Copernicus data and information policy entered into force in 2013 end. This Act provides free, full and open access to users of environmental data from the Copernicus programme, including data from the Sentinel satellites. This is the case for the Copernicus Marine Service which data will be also available “as is” from other portals. The only condition will be the duly mention of the EU Marine Service origin. The effect of making it easy to access the data and lowering the entry barriers for new businesses and entrepreneurs will automatically develop new products and services and lead to a source of economic development.

We made a very clear choice in this matter when we designed and kicked-off the MyOcean pilot service for the Copernicus Marine. We broke on purpose some existing habits, and we imposed without exception, an “open and free” data policy for every data on our catalogue. We were a bit ahead of time and the strong service uptake has proven us to be correct.

This business model is in line with the Mercator Ocean general-interest and non-profit model. We decided since the very first days to deliver a free service for science-related end-uses, considered as yet funded by our public stakeholders. We can invoice commercial-related end-uses, even if the amounts are quite limited, in particular when a specific work is required.

Do you have connections with companies which are innovating new products and services based on the products which you offer?

All users are handled equally but we are always keen, through the service desk, the collaborative forum or the user workshops, to be in close contact with companies creating new products and services powered by the Copernicus Marine Service. These “intermediate” users are a precious source of information: their requirements contribute to upgrade our service.

COPERNICUS MARINE SERVICE

Can you describe what becoming an “Entrusted Entity for the Copernicus Marine Services means for Mercator Ocean?

In November 2014, Mercator Ocean has been entrusted by the EU to implement the “Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service”, ie the marine service component of its EU Copernicus capacity.

Practically, it means that EU delegates to Mercator Ocean the role and responsibility of implementing the EU budget for delivering the service on its current multi-annual financial framework 2014-2020. We manage on behalf of EU and report to the Commission. We organize the design, development and operations of the service with our own skills and the support of contractors duly selected through open competition, we engage users in the design, we report to EU Members States, we manage the corresponding expenditure. We went through thorough audits in 2014 that proved our capacity.

The level of trust and confidence of the European Commission for a small body like Mercator Océan to manage such an important component is noteworthy. We are very proud of it, as it rewards our scientific developments so as our role as MyOcean project coordinator for 6 years. It is therefore our duty to ensure that we meet all statutory requirements of the EC and to commit to the highest standards of corporate responsibility. We know also that this confidence is a recognition of our way of working, made of cooperation, partnerships and engagement of skilled communities.

MyOcean has been the FP funded preparatory programme leading to development of the Marine Services can you describe how are you preparing for the transition from MyOcean to Copernicus Marine Services? How will the “system” change?

Mercator Ocean has no ambition to fulfill all Copernicus Production and Service Elements. This can only be achieved through partnerships. The elements that Mercator Ocean will not to undertake on its own in the frame of the EU Copernicus Marine Service will be therefore undertaken through comprehensive, open and transparent networking, by entrusting the development of services to expert partners from all backgrounds: the private sector, research institutions or public service operators. Concretely, we are and we shall issue a range of calls for tender to create the necessary strong network of partners.

Do relationships already exist between Mercator Ocean and other Entrusted Entities? For example, are there plans to coordinate activities between organisations in terms of the technical provision of services (for example EMSA with respect to oil spills, EEA for coastal etc), the procurement activities and the evolution of the services?

The Copernicus Marine Service has been designed to serve many purposes including major EU policies such as the Marine Strategy Framework Directive, combating pollution, protection of marine species, maritime safety and routing, sustainable exploitation of ocean resources, marine energy resources, climate monitoring and hurricane forecasting. As a consequence, agencies like EEA or EMSA were first and foremost key-users of MyOcean. Our data and specific developments have been contributing to their activities and missions (Eye on Earth, MSFD, CleanSeaNet…) for a few years and this will continue.

The Land Monitoring Service (entrusted to EEA) and the Security Services/ maritime surveillance (entrusted to EMSA) are complementary to the Marine Service (entrusted to Mercator Ocean). Worth being noticed that the InSitu data coordination, entrusted to EEA, will lead to other contacts with the Environmental Agency given Observations at Sea is a key upstream data supply, exactly as for ESA with Satellite data.

It is evident as well that there is an inherent link between the Marine, the Atmosphere and the Climate Change components, these two latter components being led by ECMWF, and we have a dialogue open with ECMWF to adjust our plans and cooperation.

We shall develop further these partnerships, taking advantage of this new contractual framework, with entrusted entities duly identified and a 6-year period before us.

What plans are there for controlling the provision of reliable, timely and up to date information related Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring services? And the quality of the products?

Reliability, Timeliness, Up-to-date data, Quality assessment have been pillars of the Copernicus Marine Service development during the MyOcean project phases. All Copernicus Data producers chosen through an open call process have been asked to prove and demonstrate their capabilities in terms of Quality/Validation. Excellence in this domain is not an option for Mercator Océan. This won’t be an option too for our subcontractors.

As I explained at the beginning, we designed “operational oceanography” in Europe with a strong scientific DNA, which means a close link with the research community. They are our first providers and users, indeed very demanding on the quality of products.

Mercator Ocean has led with his European partners the definition of standard metrics to assess the quality of metrics and pushed for their adoption as international standards, now applied in the US, Australia, China, Japan, Canada, …

How do you see the evolution of the Copernicus Marine services and how can all stakeholder views be taken into account as the services change?

The keyword here is again “Partnership”. Mercator Ocean has always worked in partnership, pooling resources and developing cooperative projects. This strategy is one of its major strengths enabling our small team to rise boldly to challenges well beyond the reach of a single company working on its own.

The Copernicus Marine Service encompasses two major Framework Service Elements which will power the Copernicus Marine Service developments: User Uptake (addressing downstream services) and Service Evolution (addressing the scientific progress of the Service). Building these blocks will go ahead first through Workshops and consultations, starting in fall 2015.

INDUSTRY & PROCUREMENT

How do you plan to cooperate with private sector service providers for the implementation of the marine services?

Mercator Ocean undertakes to successfully implement and develop a user-driven core service expected to contribute to European innovation and competitiveness and help build the Blue Economy. So far, the private sector represents about 20% of the Marine Service users. To improve this rate is a strategic priority for Mercator Océan echoing with the EC DG Growth General objectives. The recent EARSC study in 2012 shows that the Copernicus Marine Service is not widely spread in your community, in comparison with the Copernicus Land Service for instance. We consider this as a huge opportunity for improvement

As during the MyOcean project phase, we shall organize regular Regional User and Training Workshops each year. They will be subcontracted through tender process and be open to all communities able to federate users and prospective users in a region.

The User Uptake framework service element will be crucial to link the CMS and private companies given the calls will enable the development of downstream applications or of technical demonstrators in Maritime safety, Marine resources or Coastal environment. A dedicated InfoDay will be organised in May and June 2015 to present the User Uptake and the Service Evolution framework.

How can industry be prepared to participate to tenders issued by Mercator? For example will you be able to provide briefings on procurement plans and timescales well in advance of tender actions?

For the sake of transparency, openness and accessibility, we have created digital tools enabling communities to freely join and contact us and to learn about our progress:

• A monthly Webcast InfoDays sessions
• A Copernicus Marine Service Partnership Meeting Place group on Linkedin allowing call for tenders potential candidates to meet, discuss, and eventually form partnerships.

In a general way, Mercator Océan respects open and free competition and cannot give preferential treatment to any user. However, we intend to develop contacts with many User communities serving the Marine and Maritime Sectors such as EARSC, whose members are known to develop EO innovative solutions, in order to raise their awareness of the CMS. This interview is precisely meant to promote the CMS plans among your members and I thank you for this.

Industry has expressed concerns through EARSC position papers that cost will become the primary or only criteria used to evaluate competing bids. How will the Mercator procurement process balance the cost with quality and sustainability of service? Will you also be able to prioritise the composition of the team making the offer?

Our contract awards process is the object of particular scrutiny from our side. Costs cannot be the sole criteria to evaluate competing bids by far. Management ability, compliance with quality standards, innovative skills, competence and resource matching, extensive experience, result-oriented culture will play their part in the scope. Moreover, independent third-party experts are implied in our contract award process.

FUTURE

How do you see Mercator Océan changing over the next few years?

We have just passed a major milestone, haven’t we? It is maybe too early to look yet into the next future. However, we know yet that the delegation agreement to Mercator Océan has been conditioned by the European Commission, to the enlargement and the europeanisation of our board of shareholders. As Director General, my priority is given to the success of the CMEMS implementation by Mercator Océan while ensuring a balanced development of the company resources.

At the end of the interview, here is the opportunity for your final thoughts and how your activities could contribute to the future development of the EO geo-information service sector?

My thought can be summarized by a simple wish: that many EARSC members will open and gain new markets (UE and Export) thanks to innovative developments based on the Copernicus Marine Service.

Nicolaus, you took charge of the EO mission and Ground Segment activities in ESA last March, what are your impressions 10 months into the post?

Coming from ESA’s mandatory Science Programme the most notable difference is the high level of coordination and reflection with our Member States and other stakeholders on all activities. One of my former responsibilities was the development of the Rosetta Science Ground Segment, which constituted a significant operational and technological challenge. Now, the development and implementation of new EO Ground Segments and their operations, e.g. for the Copernicus Sentinel satellites means transcending deeply into the realm of Big Data and Information Technology, which are revolutionising Earth Observation. Everybody is mesmerized by the great prospects.

Could you briefly explain your daily activities? What exactly is the role of your team?

Most activities revolve around organising the typical Ground Segment functions, such as instrument planning, tasking & calibration, data reception, processing, distribution and archiving. But the way we do these things is constantly evolving. The teams, jointly with our partners, always assure robust and efficient mission operations while simultaneously defining new Ground Segment architectures for future missions. In particular, our Earth Explorer missions keep us continuously on the watch to utilize new technologies and to generate new spectacular science. This requires a high level of dedication and ingenuity from our mission managers and operations experts. On a different level and in order to meet our obligations within the ESA Earth Observation programme we are continuously considering aspects, such as the involvement of the new Member States and how to leverage ESA geo-return aspects.

Copernicus

The big challenge for ESA at the moment is to be ready for the large volume of data, which will soon be flowing from the Sentinel satellites, how are you preparing for this? How ready do you think you are?

We have just recently expanded our data network to its full scale and we are gradually increasing the load on the system to serve a large variety of user profiles. At the same time we keep the system flexible enough for future expansion. The most visible expression of our steadily increasing capacity is the Sentinel-1 data hub, which already enables the access to thousands of new data products every week to all users in addition to providing data to the six Copernicus Services. Our ambition is not only to fulfil but to exceed the obligations as stipulated in our agreement with the European Union who owns the system and the data.

Sentinel-3A antenna covered.Copyright ESA–Anneke Le Floc’h. More info

We are now nearly 9 months into the first Sentinel mission, how would you evaluate the operation of Sentinel-1 so far?

We had a very successful Launch and Early Orbit and Commissioning phase during which the overall system, including the Space and Ground Segment, demonstrated full compliance to the design requirements and excellent performance. During this phase we were even able to provide early demonstrations of the operational capability, for example, by responding quickly to calls for disaster management support. Nevertheless, the commissioning was also characterized by numerous challenges: certainly the most prominent was the achievement of the nominal orbit from a lower then expected injection orbit. This required some extra planning effort by the various operations teams and the final orbit was reached in early August this year. The commissioning was declared officially completed on the 23rd of September. Since the beginning of October we are operational, with data access open to all users. The overall Copernicus Space Component is now in its ramp-up phase with the key aim to gradually include the subsequent Sentinels (e.g. Sentinel 2 now scheduled to be launched in May 2015).

What challenges will the ESA team have to deal with the new instruments in terms of data processing and distribution?

Our Ground Segments are typically comprised of highly distributed functional components all of which need to be orchestrated. Scaling and introducing new schemes of data access is clearly one of the key challenges. In addition, the Sentinel missions adopt a new and innovative operations concept based on pre-defined background observation plans, so called ‘carpet mapping’. All data acquired on-board is downlinked to our core receiving stations and systematically processed to generate a set of core products. These are quality checked, archived and disseminated to the users, all within 3 to 24 hours from on-board sensing.

Some Member States will share the task of archiving the data, can you explain how this is co-ordinated e.g. on a geographic and thematic basis?

Besides the Copernicus Space Component Ground Segment, funded by the EU and managed by ESA, the operations concept foresees the deployment of Sentinels Collaborative Ground Segments across Europe. These are initiatives, funded by Member States, whose main objective is to provide supplementary access to Sentinel data as well as to generate additional higher-level products.

The areas of collaboration go well beyond archiving the data and include:

• Sentinels data acquisition and quasi real time production
• Complementary collaborative data products and algorithms definition
• Sentinels core product dissemination and access
• Development of innovative tools and applications
• Complementary external validation support activities

The collaboration framework foresees bilateral agreements between ESA and its Member States. So far four such agreements have already been signed, with Greece, Norway, Italy and Germany. Several other agreements are currently being finalised and will be put in place in early 2015. Coordination is carried out in many different ways e.g. through the various Collaborative Ground Segment agreements or by providing engineering support to the Member States for the definition and implementation. In addition, ESA organizes regular workshops twice a year gathering all partners and allowing coordination of the various initiatives.

By the way, the future use of EDRS will also have a strong potential to increase the impact of many of these activities.

We understand that there will be a “rolling archive” for Sentinel data, can you expand on what this means for the users and maybe describe the policy, which will determine the archive?

As concerns access to Sentinel data, ESA has deployed specific data access infrastructure solutions, tailored to the needs of the various use typologies. In principle four Sentinel data hub types are available to users:

The central Copernicus Services data access, providing access to Sentinel data as well as Copernicus Contributing Missions data. This access point, referred to as Coordinated Data System (CDS), is operational since 2008 and accessible online. Secondly, the open (‘Science and Other Use’) data access hub is also providing access to the Sentinel products. To ensure good performance for all users, the data access is configured in such a way as to avoid resource saturation. Consequently, the system is implemented as a rolling online archive, covering the last few months of acquisitions. Users can self-register without any restriction. To date more than 4000 users have already registered with approximately 200 new users registering per week. More than 50000 products have been downloaded, corresponding to more than 90TB worth of data. Finally, the Collaborative Ground Segments and International Agreements data hubs, which provide access to the Sentinels products and whose logic I have just described. The corresponding systems are also implemented with rolling online archives. In this case ESA is providing the user credentials to the Member States, and therefore no resource saturation filter is required.

The Sentinel data access infrastructure managed by ESA is in continuous evolution in order to meet the evolving users needs and to adapt to the latest technologies. In particular, ESA is working in close coordination with the European Commission with the aim to enlarge the online access to the complete Sentinel long term data archive for all users. Considering the large data volumes involved, this transformation of the rolling archives will require the adoption of innovative concepts and tools including those of cloud-based exploitation platforms and hosted processing. ESA has gained considerable experience in these concepts through its Ground Segment R&D programme, and most recently through the Thematic Exploitation Platform initiative.

Iceberg on Sentinel-1A’s radar.Copyright Copernicus data (2014)/ESA/e-GEOS. More info

Ground Segment & Registration

ESA distributes data from ESA EO Missions, ESA Campaigns, the Sentinels, Copernicus Contributing Missions and Third Party Missions (TPMs)- what are the main differences between the distribution of these different types of data?

ESA strives to adopt a similar data access strategy across all mission types. In particular, over the past couple of years activities have focused on ensuring all data holdings are easily accessible online by all users. We have also made major improvements in the user registration process with the introduction of Single Sign On and specific work is being done in the area of Federated User Management. Obviously our systems need to be able to handle the specificities of each mission, in particular as concerns data policy and licensing from non-ESA missions. This is the case for Third Party and Copernicus Contributing Missions. On the other hand we will continue strive to make data access ever more transparent in terms of the data sources. Ideally, the user would not even have to consider where the data is coming from.

How will 3rd party users i.e. those not part of the supply chain for Copernicus services access the data from Copernicus?

Any user can access Sentinel data from at least one of the various data hubs deployed by ESA. In particular, any user can self register in the Open Access data hub by logging into sentinel.esa.int. The process of registration is straightforward and is not subject to an explicit approval by ESA.

Will you track who is accessing what data and from where? Will there be means in place to balance the data flow from the different nodes?

Our data access system includes specific monitoring functionality, which allows to monitor the access to the data for reporting as well as troubleshooting purposes. In addition our data access enhancement plan already foresees deployment of a federated network of data hub relays, allowing to balance the data traffic depending on the user requests.

What role will the mirror sites play in the data supply? Can a user in country X gain access to data covering country Y from a site or node in Country Z?

The role of mirror sites and the access options depends on the specific layout and purpose foreseen by a Member State e.g. in the case of Collaborative Ground Segment mirror site. We are seeing an impressive spectrum of potential mirror site scenarios evolving vastly expanding the accessibility and usability of the data by commercial and scientific users.

Sentinel-1 maps Fogo eruption. Copernicus data (2014)/ESA/Norut-PPO.labs–COMET-SEOM InSARap study. More info

Will all users (and thinking particularly of European companies compared to those users outside of Europe) have the same level of data access?

With the establishment of the Open (‘Science and Other Use’) access we have generated a level playing field for all users. The Collaborative Ground Segment accesses will provide a spectrum of additional and appealing options for European companies. As explained before we are constantly in contact with the European Commission to prepare the most effective and practical next evolutionary steps for the Open access.

How can users place requests for data where satellite acquisition programming is required? Will all users have the same level of priority?

It is important to keep in mind that with ‘carpet mapping’ missions the concept of acquisition programming takes a very secondary role. For example, Sentinel-2 will systematically acquire all land masses within a certain latitude range as part of its observation planning scenario. The priority on what remains of the concept revolves largely around the Copernicus Services with some exceptions, which are handled as part of the Mission Management.

EO Distribution

What is the level of access to Sentinel 1 data? If a company wishes to download a large amount of data for a specific application, will that be possible? Which limits are established for downloading?

All this information is available but also continuously evolving – therefore, for the current status, I would like to refer you to: sentinel.esa.int

Information & Communication Technology

Many European players are now offering services in cloud computing and management of “big data”.(e.g. ATOS, T- Systems, CloudSigma, Interoute etc) but how is ESA evaluating that large non-European information management companies (e.g. Google, Microsoft, Amazon) are also taking an active interest in Europe and EO?

We are convinced that European companies are positioning themselves quite consciously and skillfully to become also players in this context. In this sense we see the big US information companies as an inspiration and challenge for a potentially wide range of European initiatives rather than a monolithic European response. Our role is to make sure that the EO data are available for these initiatives and to provide technological know-how in terms of what we have learned over 30 years in view of facilitating EO data exploitation. After finalising the EU-ESA Copernicus Agreement we can now put even more emphasis on iterating potential next steps for optimising our support for such initiatives jointly with the European Commission.

The gold standard for EDRS.Copyright Airbus Defence and Space SAS 2014. More info

The thematic exploitation platforms (TEPs) provide a complete work environment for their users performing data-intensive research by running dedicated processing software close to the data. How have those platforms been evaluated for potential users?

The entities for the implementation of the TEPs have been selected and will provide a range of new approaches to push the concept forward. A key criterion in the evaluation was the user perspective with which we are traditionally quite familiar by having served these thematic communities in the past. I would like to stress that this type of exploitation platform is only one, although a potent one, of several ways to organise such platforms. Within ESA but also in our Member States there is an entire eco-system of different exploitation platform initiatives evolving, some through stimulus projects, some by the expansion of well-established exploitation systems.

What is your opinion around the Data Innovation and Science Centres (DISCs) bringing together scientists and service providers? Will they carry out functions related to processing algorithm evolution/maintenance, as well as instrument calibration / product validation / routine quality control?

It is still too early to pick one specific concept, such as the DISC concept, which we are currently discussing with our Members States, to have a final opinion about them. We are using these concepts to trigger discussions and to provide incentives for envisioning new scenarios. In this sense the concept of the DISCs has been already very useful.

Future

In the next few years, how do you see the activities of your department changing?

This is a very dynamic environment, which will require flexibility and adaptation regarding many of our tasks. The increasing fusion of the classical engineering of Ground Segments with activities and skills coming straight out of the information service sector will be one such change. A renewed focus on key competences concerning the data content, data integrity and data cross-discipline utilisation potential is another example. Finally, changes will derive from the new ESA EO Strategy and EO Science Strategy.

At the end of the interview, here is the opportunity for your final thoughts on how your activities could contribute to the future development of the EO geo-information service sector.

One of the keys for pro-actively and successfully contributing to this sector is generating a common frame o reference, not the least, for facilitating communication about this highly complex subject. There is a huge range of diverse experiences and interpretations about possible future scenarios. I hope that, together with our Member States, we can help to identify and work along common concepts and approaches toward success in terms of broadening the user base and maximising user satisfaction.

Biography

More information about his biography at the following link

Geoville

Christian, how do you feel about being the first winner?

We at GeoVille are very much honoured and proud of having received the EARSC 25th anniversary celebration award “European Earth Observation Company of the Year 2014”. It is the recognition of 16 years of passionate work and dedication to develop and provide innovative satellite derived geo-information products and services in response to our customer’s needs, always striving for an excellent price-quality ratio.

Tell us a bit about the history of GeoVille, how you started it and how it has grown over the years

The foundation of GeoVille Information Systems GmbH in 1998 coincided with the launch of GMES at the Baveno event. In its early years, GeoVille developed RegioCover, an innovative land mapping processing chain, which received the GMES Innovation Award in 2007. RegioCover paved the ground for the production of the first-ever operational GMES land monitoring product on soil sealing, tendered by the European Environment Agency.

As a privately owned, truly independent company, we have always been very flexible to new market trends. Moreover, we always employed the satellite data fittest for the application and understood that customers require end-to-end, yet easy-to-understand solutions for their environmental applications. Therefore, in 2007, we founded our sister company, GeoVille Environmental Services managed by Stefan Kleeschulte, and developed the Geographic Accounting product.

With our Geographic Accounting product, users can answer questions with a critical impact to public administrations or private businesses, such as how many people are affected by climate change, which critical infrastructures and ecosystems are exposed, and how large are economic risks as well as potential damages and losses.

Over the past few years, the RegioCover and Geographic Accounting products have successfully served our clients in International Financial Institutions. Given this recent success and the growing size of this market, in 2013 we established a representation in Washington D.C. to better access D.C.-based institutions such as World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, Millennium Challenge Corporation and International Finance Cooperation.

When you started in business, what specific idea, purpose or vision was your driving force? Where does your strong entrepreneurial spirit come from?

As a boy, I was fond of ancient 17th and 18th century maps in old atlases that I received from my grandfather, where many parts of the world showed white as “unknown territory”. My dream was to uncover these remote areas. Prior to founding GeoVille I had the privilege to gain working experience at Intergraph Corporation in Amsterdam, the United Nations in New York and the Joint Research Center in Ispra, all of them dealing with specific aspects of the environment. Through this invaluable experience I have found out that I am best in business and this is what I realised with GeoVille.

Even if there are no more unsurveyed areas in the strict cartographic sense, only with GeoVille my dream became a reality. Today its “environmental monitoring” and this is a rapidly growing market, where space can make a unique contribution.

What you would say about your leadership style? What is “your take” on the general notion that entrepreneurs should build a business around what they actually love to do?

I am feeling deeply grateful for being able to turn my boyhood dream into reality. We in GeoVille are a fantastic team of likeminded ambitious colleagues and in running the company, I see myself as ‘the first among equals’. Recently, we learnt from WikiLeaks that GeoVille is considered a ‘boutique’ Earth Observation company, successfully serving a niche market within Europe’s space industry. I would call this “good intelligence work”!

What was the greatest challenge you encountered when you started and how was it overcome?

The biggest challenge was securing the venture capital at the time of starting the company. At this time, hardware facilities were still very expensive. Once I convinced my co-owners to invest jointly, everything went smooth – 16 years of steady growth from a one-person company to a head count of 45 in 2014 with a turnover well above 4 Mill €. In all those years not one customer was left behind.

Please tell us very simply what GeoVille does? GeoVille starts where traditional mapping ends! For customers, we do the spatial job through satellites’ eyes and provide geographic accounting solutions. Our geo-information products fulfil the highest quality standards so that our customers can concentrate on their core business. What are the key markets that GeoVille addresses? Our focus is on land monitoring and environmental accounting with a strong international development aspect. In the last 16 years, we have successfully implemented projects in more than 120 countries world-wide. Sectors of impact comprise a variety of land-related applications, such as agriculture, energy & extractives, environment & natural resources, forestry, natural hazards, urban, rural & social development and water management. What do you consider are the most important competences of GeoVille that help you succeed in the market? The key asset is our team a group of highly qualified and motivated experts willing to engage with the challenges of the new digital era and to go extra lengths for guaranteeing full customer satisfaction. What do you see as the main challenges facing you as CEO of GeoVille in the next 1-2 years? Looking over daily news, we see that our world is in full motion. With our geospatial solutions, we bring tangible benefits to our clients in their efforts to assure better living standards for people and safeguard environmental conditions. Internally, recruitment of experts is always an issue. In the short term we are facing the challenge to come up with attractive packages so that we encourage Earth Observation and Geoinformatics professionals to join our team at GeoVille. On the financial side, companies all over Europe suffer from a bad payment moral, and the financial crisis has not made access to venture capital easier. On data issues, access to Sentinel data is on a critical track. The Sentinels are a fantastic opportunity for European companies and we will have a unique system in place to improve environmental monitoring. Unfortunately, to put it bluntly, the Copernicus ground segment primarily serves European large scale services. Other users and particularly SMEs are left behind thereby creating a massive loss of opportunities for society and not fully capitalising on prior investments.

MARKET VIEWS

Where do you see the greatest opportunities for growth in the near future?

Certainly, Copernicus offers a big opportunity. It’s about transforming a fragmented market today into a consolidated growth market serving real public needs. The application business has been dominated by one-off projects, and those low-margin projects did make it hard for companies to grow. The agricultural controls established in the late 1980s are a good example on how a European push can create a success story and a sustainable market. My prospect for Copernicus follows this line and this is why we have engaged in this program right from the start. On the commercial market I see land related opportunities predominantly in the renewably energy business and in ecosystem service assessment and valuation.

Are there any issues, positive or negative, that you consider may affect the evolution of the market you are addressing?

I am seriously concerned about unfair competition issues from publicly financed service providers responding to tenders. Clear lines would need to be drawn and unfortunately, in our sector this is too often not the case. As industry has recently highlighted through an EARSC position paper, the way in which Copernicus Services will be procured will have a very important influence over how companies can participate to the programme. De-facto monopolies resulting in single bids only must be avoided at all cost.

At the moment, innovation seems to be on everyone’s list of things to promote, what is your perception of innovation in the EO services sector? In what ways is innovation important to GeoVille?

These days innovation is too often linked to the price alone, with the aim to produce more for less money. We need to break this progressing paradigm where “less cost” is associated with being “innovative”. Unfortunately, quality issues are left behind, for the disadvantage of the end-users. Big data and Industry 4.0, the fourth industrial revolution, pose a big opportunity to implement new purchasing mechanisms thereby reinventing innovation and making sure that the European EO industry stands at the forefront of technology.

What concerns do you have; are there threats that you see for your business?

In business, threats need to be turned into challenges – or even better – into opportunities; otherwise you are swiped away from the market. I see plenty of opportunities for the European service industry as there will be a range of new data available from commercial providers and from the Sentinels. The latter will be freely available and time is ready to multiply what has successfully been delivered to one customer. The Earth Observation market must move from single showcases to ubiquity.

After all the EO industry has quadrupled its turnover since 2000 and the framework conditions are excellent for this growth to continue.

One word of concern: Access to Sentinel data must be solved. Not on the theoretical side but with regard to the practical implementation in the Member States.

EO SERVICE DEVELOPMENT AND STAKEHOLDERS

In the EO services sector, governments can have a strong influence over the way business develops. Aside from being a good customer, what’s the one other thing governments can do to support the development of the sector?

Governments can steer the ‘demand’ side, for example by implementing environmental reporting obligations. Such reporting obligations will guarantee that goals are controlled and met and thereby help the environment and create a whole set of socio-economic benefits. Moreover, such reporting obligations will help to move from “nice to have” products to information that is required by law and therefore repetitively requested. In this respect, governments are well advised to promote the ‘supply-side’ as well, fostering the development of new competitive, cost-effective quality minded solutions through public research programmes.

Furthermore, national space programs focusing on technology development and applications can also be a good way to develop a niche position. The Austrian Space Application Program now in its 10th year of implementation is such an example. Measures should address in supplier/customer projects the ability to sell and the willingness to pay.

EARSC is the European trade association dealing with the geospatial services sector; in your opinion, what for you are the main benefits of EARSC membership?

For GeoVille it is important to be a Member of EARSC, because EARSC is the only organisation promoting the interest of the European EO industry and underpinning its market position vis a vis non-European players and also the increasing market distorting competition from European public institutions.

FUTURE

Finally, what can you say about your outlook for the sector and how companies in this sector should be positioning themselves?
  
In the last months I have seen in the commercial and public domain many successes overcoming the single most important barrier, which is lack to a broad market access. Imagine that we have been able to win bids and successfully work as an SME in more than 120 countries in four continents. I call this a fantastic outlook for GeoVille and the European EO industry.

Our business will move from single small-scale opportunities to Big Data and this is why we at Geoville have invested to become partner to a supercomputer network allowing us processing four petabyte of data per year. This will bring us closer to surveying the last remaining unknowns of our planet, and to provide even more competitive solutions to our clients. Finally, we need to bring our results closer to the people and their digital devices, for example through online web mapping platforms. Such new communication lines pose a big opportunity for implementing new business concepts and a chance for the industrial players in Europe.

Last but not least SME’s such as GeoVille are the source of growth, employment and innovation in Europe. Therefore, it is of key importance that Copernicus tendering takes this into account by making bidding volumes accessible for SME’s. This can be achieved for instance via individual lots rather than single large contracts and by setting clear rules prohibiting unfair competition from publicly financed service providers.

Biography

Christian Hoffmann holds a doctorate degree from the University of Vienna and is the founder of GeoVille Group, a company specialising in products and services related to Earth Observation (EO) and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) applications. He has 25 years of experience in earth observation and GIS applications working prior to GeoVille for the United Nations in New York, the Joint Research Center in Ispra and Intergraph in Hoofddorp.

How your Directorate is taking care about the political strategy on the one hand and major industrial interests on the other. How is this duality integrated?

Special attention has always been paid by the Agency and by Member States, to the dialogue with European Space industry. The ESA dialogue with industry has been reinforced late 2012, since the last Council at Ministerial level decided to create a “High Level Forum” (HLF) that gathers together representatives of Member States and of the whole value chain of space industry to foster a dialogue on competitiveness and growth in Europe and provide recommendations to the Director General. It institutionalizes the dialogue, and in a number of cases trigger specific industry-ESA expert working groups whose exchanges allow to develop further in details issues and options.

The key question of the balance between industrial interests and political strategy is achieved when the Executive, e.g. wrt procurement and industrial policy evolutions, presents concrete proposals to Member States delegations through ESA Council and/or its subordinate bodies.

How is this balanced with the views of Member States and what does it mean in practice (ie what tools/instruments do you use to develop an industrial policy?

The working out of industrial policy evolution and set up is always a complex process, which has to consider the different views of Member States and of the different programme directorates, and ensure that proposals will be manageable, efficient while reflecting the objectives of the different stakeholders. Obviously, every ESA national Delegation has structured dialogues in place with national industry, in particular to prepare space national policies and Delegation positions w.r.t. ESA delegate bodies.

The large diversity of stakes necessitates step-by-step approaches, where issues are presented and discussed, options are sketched and Member States positions gathered, before policies are taking final shape. Sometimes different Council subordinate bodies have to be consulted before new policies are endorsed by Council. On these issues, I have been always looking for strong consensus, well ahead of pure majority votes; it is inevitably time and effort consuming but when adopted the policy is on solid grounds and presents chances for stability of rules over time, an essential element for industry.

Inevitably, evolutions with high political importance deserve decisions by Ministers, for example to mandate the Director General to put in place the means necessary to implement broad policy decisions.

Traditionally ESA responsibility is for the space manufacturing industry whilst many of the benefits lie downstream; how can ESA do more to help the downstream sector develop being this important to underpin and sustain investments made in the manufacturing segment?

The development of the downstream sector is, and always been, an important concern for ESA: the economy is there, as well as the direct benefit for the citizens. It is a domain where ESA is not alone to shape the success conditions. ESA already has put in place specific programmes like the VAC, within the Earth Observation Envelope Programme, or the Integrated Application Programme in ARTES, for this. ESA certainly helped through the development of knowledge, technologies. ESA already promoted the use of space technology and data. ESA demonstrated services and provide efficient access to data. To do more in this respect, and it is necessary, I am personally convinced that ESA needs a renewed mandate from Ministers.

EARSC has recently published a position paper on ESA downstream sector development, how do you respond to this and where do you see the priorities on the 5 major recommendations:
◦ stimulate the full exploitation of space data and the development of innovative applications, with industry-led initiatives
◦ create financial conditions for new initiatives to thrive and prosper
◦ provide specific support to the transition of proven demonstration concepts into commercial operations
◦ support access of European industry to the global market
◦ create a clear institutional market for EO services industry sector in Europe.

I would like to thank EARSC for it. It allowed to identify the most important elements that policy makers have to consider to develop the EO downstream sector. Being precise in the different domains of action, it allows Member States to reflect further on what could/should be performed by ESA, by the Commission, or through other national mechanisms. It is obviously useful for ESA programme directorates to reflect on what ESA can further develop and propose through work plans to programme boards.

To move forward, the EARSC position paper was included in a document which described the status of Executive plan of action wrt past HLF, together with the outcomes of the June HLF, which was discussed in the frame of ESA Industrial Policy Committee, end of June.

Our intention is to propose a resolution to Council, in view of the preparation of the end of the year Ministerial Conference, to further develop ESA programmes and activities in support to the development of the European downstream sector. Such a resolution would set a clear mandate to ESA, and would trigger a number of actions to define how best ESA could support the sector.

Part of the resolution addresses the need to continue the dialogue with industry and associations like EARSC, successfully engaged with the High Level Forum, in view to promote the utilisation of European operational space infrastructures, to reflect on how to reach sustainable commercial business, and to optimise the ESA procurement process and industrial policy measures in this domain. This dialogue should significantly help in developing the right actions, in defining optimized instruments. In itself the way it could be further organized is an important question.

Do you think it should be necessary to identify instruments that allow organising co-operation between ESA and the EO industry sector in a more effective way?

I think that ESA and industry associations can start reflections on the instruments which would foster further cooperation between ESA and the EO industry sector. A new mandate from the ESA Member States would in this respect provides a concrete impetus.

What specific measures EARSC members could be taking to help ESA develop a stronger platform in Europe for the downstream sector?

To help ESA develop a stronger platform in Europe for the downstream sector, probably the most urgent for EARSC members is to communicate to their respective ESA national delegation on their situation, and on the reasons why ESA involvement in the development of the sector appear beneficial to them, and for which specific objectives. The demands for space investments are multiple, opportunities exist in different space sectors, and in a context of competition for the national resources channeled through ESA, evidences need to be provided at a moment decisions makers may consider that the downstream sector development is already secured by the Commission or national programme plan of investments. This industry-national delegation dialogue is a necessity, and would prepare, the adoption of the resolution at the end of the year, and the implementation phase in case a renewed mandate would be granted.

We see a large number of private initiatives for developing and launching EO satellite constellations suddenly being launched from the US using private finance; why do you feel that this is possible in the US and not in Europe? In your opinion, what can Europe do to create the conditions for similar initiatives here?

The large number of private initiatives for developing and launching EO satellite constellations that you mention is a very interesting trend. It demonstrates, if needed, that there are real business perspectives, and threats. Inevitably this will have to stimulate the European industry reflections, and also trigger new analyses on the side of European institutions.

We can easily recognise that the business environment and the strengths and weaknesses of the EO industry in Europe and US … are very different! In addition, the attention paid to space by the governments, the media, the citizens are also very different on both sides of the Atlantic. Europe has to create its own framework conditions to develop its markets and industries. In this respect, the sectorial policies of the EU are an essential leverage.

It is an exciting and complex challenge, that European industry and space public sector, should vigorously take up. On the institutional side, a larger attention paid on how to leverage the economic potential of space scientific developments, coupled with increased reactivity and pro-activity, are pre-requisites; this should steer a number of evolutions, including for ESA.

We are reaching the end of the interview and here is an opportunity for you to share with us your vision on the future development of the EO geo-information service sector.

In my view, European EO service industry is ascending and is also very competent. However, the worldwide competitive environment is tough.

EARSC position paper has already identified a number of concrete domain of interventions, for which ESA can certainly contribute, with an increased “partner role” with many other stakeholders. This is certainly not the easier thing to do, but the DNA of the Agency has already features which can support successfully such a transformation.

In general terms, Europe has a strong scientific base, but has difficulties in transforming this knowledge into very successful business. Now that commercial applications develop in EO services, the key question is whether Europe will leverage its scientific knowledge, early demonstration initiatives, business inception phases, into growing, sustainable businesses. Considering the size of the European public investments in EO research and space infrastructure developments, and the coming long term operation perspectives of Copernicus, Europe is facing a turning point, and cannot fail.

What is your vision for the EU EO services industry, and/or what steps do you think ESA and /or the EU can take to ensure that the industry develops and maintains its leading position in a global market?

Many European stakeholders will have to cooperate; the Commission, involving all Directorates in charge of sectorial policies, ESA, and national space Agencies, have to exploit their respective roles and competencies, to develop the framework conditions which will give the best chance for this industry to grow and find a strong positioning on the worldwide markets. It is an urgent and essential matter.

Short Biography
Eric Morel de Westgaver took up duty as Director of Industry, Procurement and Legal Affairs (D/IPL) on 1 November 2013.
Eric Morel de Westgaver graduated in Economics from the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium. He joined ESA in 1987 as Industrial Policy Officer in the Directorate of Administration. In 2001, he became Head of the Industrial Policy and Cost Analysis Department in the Directorate of Industrial Matters and Technology Programmes.
Before his current appointment, he had been Director of Procurement, Financial Operations and Legal Affairs (D/PFL) since April 2011 and before that, Head of the Procurement Department since October 2004 in the Directorate of Resources Management and Industrial Matters. In addition to this responsibility he was nominated Associate Director for Industrial Matters by the Director General in February 2010. In this capacity he conducted to completion the Procurement Reform in its regulatory and policy aspects to be in line with international best practices and to better control project costs and planning.

EO Service Development

Can you describe in a simple way your daily work at the sustainable development offices of the Asian Development Bank?

Our work focuses on solving problems, developing business opportunities, and sharing knowledge, from clean energy to sustainable transport to education to food security. Our role is to connect research with action on the ground. We support ADB’s investments by piloting and embedding state-of-the art practices in our operations. We make certain that our operations are compliant with our safeguard policies. We also strive to share our know-how on these different topics with others through studies and training.

Could you explain how your team is assisting the sustainable development projects? How these units working in a particular project are coordinated?

We strive to take a nexus approach. We organize ourselves into multidisciplinary teams as the project requires. In addition to our department, we have 15 communities of practice that focus on diverse areas including urban, water, energy, gender, education and health.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Space Agency (ESA) have been partnering for the purpose of increasing the use of EO in the ADB´s lending operations, across all sectors but especially in development work… Could you explain further about the initiative from the ADB point of view?

The ADB-ESA initiative provides a good opportunity to demonstrate to ADB’s clients how EO information can be used for development projects. Although EO has much potential to improve ADB’s operations, most staff members are not yet familiar with the technology, and EO applications have not been customized for ADB projects.

Does cooperation with other space agencies take a similar approach or is this one different?

For the collaboration between ADB and ESA, the focus is on improving project planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation by using satellite-based information provided by ESA. For the collaboration with Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), the focus is more on introducing to client countries applications using satellite technology under the capacity development program. More than data or information, technical advice to support agencies in the countries on how to apply the technology is also provided.

Can you describe a typical project lifecycle and at what points geo-information data could be used?

A project starts out being part of a country partnership strategy between ADB and a particular client country, and then goes through the stages of preparation, approval, implementation, completion and evaluation. Geo-information data could be used for planning, monitoring and evaluating projects. If the project is designed to introduce the technology in a country, the data could be used even after the project finishes.

Which areas do you see as the priority and which can benefit most from Earth observation ? eg. water resources management, urban development, agriculture and forestry, natural resources management, climate change, environmental monitoring ……?

It’s difficult to say which area is the priority or could benefit the most. For design and construction of large infrastructure projects (transportation, energy, water, agriculture, etc.), high resolution satellite data is very useful for planning, monitoring and evaluating the project sites more efficiently and effectively. To use satellite data in a sustainable manner, free lower resolution data, which is good for agriculture, forestry, natural resources, environment, and water, is more suitable.

Which factors could be used to demonstrate the value of these services as useful tools to ADB teams? eg cost, improved delivery of aid, better involvement of the local; community…..

Some of the factors could include remote sensing information for dangerous or remote areas; objective information as an alternative source to unreliable content, such as a subjectively written report; cost effective wide coverage information could be good for national and regional scale information; freely available data to support the lack of ground data in a country; and quick data acquisition for disaster response.

What kind of support does ADB need to develop the capacity to use all types of space-based information in support of sustainable development projects?

We need technical advice and capacity development programs for our staff members to understand available applications, how to use them, and best practices. For our client countries, a capacity development program is needed to improve technical capacity, increase awareness and understanding of management of agencies to develop polices to allocate enough budget and human resources to sustain the use of EO by showing cost benefit analyses.

How can this kind of support be organised in the future?

A technical staff seconded from JAXA is at ADB to hold seminars and workshops. He is also implementing a capacity development technical assistance project for our client countries. ESA could consider seconding experts and support team to ADB to build a long-term sustainable partnership on EO for development in Asia through ADB operations.

COOPERATION & PARTNERSHIP WITH EO INDUSTRY

Do you have any views on the role we (EARSC) can play to help ADB?

EARSC could encourage European EO application providers to develop applications and joint venture business plans with Asian partners to work on Asian requirements. You could share information on these applications and business plans with ADB.

We are organising a Portal which provides information on EO products and services to different end-user communities. Do you feel this could be useful for the ADB?

It would be useful if the portal could provide web-based browsing and analysis tools on examples of projects that are relevant to ADB’s client countries. Information on costs and design of sustainability would also be useful. Collections of results of EO applications in projects in different development organizations would be also useful.

Would any further joint initiative be appropriate to raise awareness of the capabilities of the European EO services industry?

Knowledge sharing about EO applications is not enough among development agencies. It would be good if European EO services could integrate the results with different partners and hold knowledge sharing events inviting different stakeholders.

How would you advise European-based service providers, which are mainly very small but highly innovative companies, to become better integrated in such a development and cooperation projects?

EO application is an interdisciplinary approach. Providing only data is not enough. If European service providers could work with non-space sector service providers and offer total solutions to meet development needs, I think they can provide more attractive and feasible solutions.

FUTURE & SOCIETY

At the end of the interview, we would like to ask you for your overall views on the future development of the geo-information service sector, and would like to ask to give some hopefully positive messages to the members of EARSC.

With the rapid growth in the variety of EO data and services and declining price for accessing them, I believe there will be more opportunities for the geo-information and earth observation industry to support the work of development organizations like ADB. To develop practical and useful solutions, dialogue between suppliers, partners, and end-users in developing countries in Asia is very important. Building on the experiences from the pilot initiative between ESA and ADB, members of EARSC can explore bright opportunities for significant EO applications in Asia in the future.

Mr. Woochong Um is the Officer in Charge and Deputy Director General for the Regional and Sustainable Development Department of the Asian Development Bank. He is currently overseeing ADB’s climate finance program with particular focus on leveraging private sector and carbon market financing. His responsibilities also include sustainable infrastructure, gender and social development, governance and public management, environment, and safeguards. Before his appointment as Deputy Director General, Mr. Um was the Director of the Sustainable Infrastructure Division of the RSDD. Mr. Um’s portfolio of initiatives included clean energy, energy efficiency, transport, water supply and sanitation, urban development, and information and communication technology.
Prior to this, Mr. Um was a specialist in charge of managing infrastructure projects in the in the Mekong Department. Most notably, Mr. Um led a team to prepare the Nam Theun 2 hydroelectric project in Lao PDR in collaboration with the World Bank. He is ADB’s focal point for dams and development issues, as well as mega urban development projects. He was also involved in various bank-wide initiatives, including the establishment of ADB’s accountability mechanism.
Before joining ADB, Mr. Um worked as the Corporate Information Systems Specialist at Pfizer Inc. in New York, and as Lead Programming Analyst at Pitney Bowes Inc. in Stamford, Connecticut, USA.
Mr. Um, a Korean, has an MBA in finance and international business from New York University and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science/Management from Boston College.

	Woochong Um +6326325935 wcum@adb.org www.adb.org

Background

Q: Thank you professor Stel for your time, firstly, tell us a bit about the type of work you do. Could you give us your background and your activities in your organization?

I am trained as a paleontologist in the Netherlands, and did my thesis on the paleobiology of some 400 million years old reefs in the Baltic. Next I became a science manager for oceanographic research for most of my career. Since 2000, I became a half time professor in ‘Ocean Space and Human Activity’ at the University of Maastricht.

As a science manager, I organized the Second Dutch-Indonesian Snellius Expedition in the late eighties and the Dutch Indian Ocean Expedition in the early nineties. Both expeditions were embedded in a five year program of collaboration and capacity building. Finally I developed the Dutch Antarctic research program, and was one of the founding members of the DROMLAN air network in 2002, linking Cape Town, with the Antarctic. At the European level I created around 1985, a European consortium that still is participating in the Ocean Drilling Program. At the global and regional level I was involved in the early development of the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS), founder of a series of regional GOOS bodies on behalf of the IOC, and strongly involved in EuroGOOS.

Q: What kind of fields are you personally involved in or focused on now?

In Maastricht, I was part of the International Centre for Integrated assessment and Sustainable development (ICIS). In the beginning the institute was led by Jan Rotmans (http://www.drift.eur.nl/), and had a focus on integrated assessment as well as transition management. Later its focus changed towards sustainability. When I came to ICIS in 2000, I hoped to be able to link ocean sciences with social sciences in order to address the interactions between human activities and the environment of which we are just a minor part. This should be done in an integrated way, from a system science approach, and taking the ocean as a starting point. For this, I re-introduced the 4D notion of ocean space. Ocean literacy is another issue that I am currently dealing with. I am a popular science writer for some 35 years, and ‘Horizon 2020’ is finally offering the urgently needed opportunities in this.

Q: How important are earth observation satellites to the work that you are doing?

Answering this question is a matter of perspective. From a global perspective, earth observations are vital for our understanding of ocean space. In coastal areas and the Exclusive Economic Zones, earth observations form the backbone of large variety of industries. Yet, for exploring ocean space as such, observations by satellites provide, at best, just half of the observing system we need. Here underwater drones etc. are taking over. But these data should, of course, be integrated with the ones from the satellites.

Political Agenda:

Q: The European Commission has recently announced that it has “approved a fund of approximately €3.8 billion to send six satellites into space to monitor the impacts of climate change.”…How important do you consider this programme and its potential impacts on political decisions?

From an ocean space perspective, I have mixed feeling about this. When I was involved in GMES and EuroGOOS I noticed that the (outer) space lobby was well organized and strong. On the other hand the ocean science lobby was and still is, weak. As a consequence most funding and new opportunities go to the space sector. ESA’s newly funded missions – the ‘sentinels’ – to which you are referring, are an excellent example of the strong position of this organization and it industrial allies. But, small industries often being the catalysts of innovation hardly benefit from it. This does, however, not at all mean that the ‘sentinels’ are not needed. They form a smart “bridge” between national and European level investments to underpin Copernicus, and to monitor the polluting effects of human activities. Although the ocean space component is more or less lacking, it will influence future EU policy making.

Q: Will the implementation of Copernicus help strengthen the political commitment towards action linked to climate change?

Political commitments mostly are rather transitory. Copernicus has a focus on environmental monitoring. Its scope should thus be broader that just climate change. The climate change community is, however, becoming an important and, especially in the media, popular force. And that’s good as we really have to change our attitude. With this I mean that the present and continuously increasing scale and magnitude of human activities are indeed a threat for the Earth System, and by that for mankind and its human activities. As Copernicus will deliver more information about environmental change and climate change, I assume that the political commitment to do something about it will indeed increase. The problem is, however, what will we do? Will there be a focus on new technology or will sustainability of human activities be the focus? In this context I am afraid that the widely advocated notion of the Anthropocene, which I consider as a misleading and potentially treacherously, will lead to technological ‘solutions’. With the Anthropocene we are moving towards thin ice.

Q: How important is the role played by GOOS? Will the suppression of the I-GOOS panel strengthen or weaken the actions taken by the group?

With the IOC one should watch for too much bureaucracy. I remember that in the early phases GOOS was functioning rather well. I think that deleting I-GOOS from the management structure is a good idea. It might help to generate more support as well as to increase the needed capacity building and outreach aspects of the program.
Coming back to GOOS, I think it is one of the most important initiatives of the IOC since the late eighties. Its implementation is a slow and tedious process. But it is moving forwards. Last year some 65% of GOOS was established, whereas initiatives such as Argo are a major success. They are opening up real ocean space information, which we urgently need.

Q: How does GOOS fit with GEO/GEOSS? Are the two organisations complementary? Do you consider that steps could be taken to improve their co-operation?

GEO is a US led initiative that matured after the Johannesburg Summit in 2002. At the moment one is discussing its continuation and funding until 2025. It is all about the global coordination of earth observations. As such it was and is an interesting initiative. GOOS, which developed after Rio 1992, is the ocean (space) component of it.

Industry:

Q: What role do you perceive that the private sector plays in monitoring environmental and climate change and can more be done to make it more effective?

In Europe this has been a difficult issue. For a long time EuroGOOS did not want to work together with the industry at all. Even in GMES it was not easy for the industry to participate as well as in most of the EU Framework programs. But with Copernicus downstream activities have finally become much more important. I think that the industry should participate fully within Copernicus. Moreover, it should also participate in future comparable programs to explore and exploit ocean space. There is a shared responsibility and opportunity. A good example how this can work was the marine component of EUREKA. Within EUROMAR, for which I organized the first EUROMAR Market in 1988, a large number of innovative products were developed.

Q: What is your view of the outlook for the value adding services sector? What factors are most important to this industry?

Real access to markets, fair competition with public institutions and seed money for innovation.

Q: How can collaboration between government and the private sector be improved?

For that there is a rather straightforward answer: one needs funding, seed funding. Again I refer to my experience with EUROMAR. Based on this, I suggest the availability of focused funding at the EU level.

Q: EARSC has recently supported the policy to make data from Copernicus Sentinel satellites free and open. However, some private companies selling data from their own satellites have been and are uncomfortable with this policy. In consequence it is clear that the boundary between what is done by government (through public agencies) and by industry (through private investment) needs to be more clearly defined ie who should do what in the future. This is necessary in order that private funds can be deployed to invest not just in new satellite systems but equally into new VA products and services. In your experience is this also important when it comes to developing monitoring systems for environmental and climate change?

Well, I am a little bit puzzled by the attitude of the industry you are mentioning. I would expect the industry to be more daring and identifying its own markets. On the other hand the ‘protection’ of downstream activities of public agencies is indeed a reason for concern. My impression is that, in Europe, governments, and as a consequence the EU, sometimes sets double standards in these situations. That is ‘killing’ for small, innovative companies in these fields. This should be stopped.
In contrast, the situation in the US has always been open, and has led to a large innovative downstream business sector.

Technical:

Q: Climate change missions will contribute to the collection of key data sets? What ground-breaking innovations do you consider the upcoming missions will bring to this field?

The Sentinal-1 missions for instance will give continuity in SAR data, and as such build on the highly successful ERS-1 and 2, Envisat, and Radarsat missions. The June 2013 Special Issue of Oceanography, gives an impressive overview of the possibilities of ocean remote sensing with SAR. The polar orbiting Sentinel-1 is highly important in a time when there are a lot of uncertainties how global warming will affect the Arctic and North Atlantic. That there will be large (system) changes goes without saying. As a consequence this capability will assist human activities in a time of transition. I expect that the emphasis of the market will be on exploration activities at higher latitudes.

Q: Environmental satellite missions will gather data from not so easily accessible areas, such as deserts and oceans. Do you consider that such missions can play a role linked to increasing economic activity?

Certainly. For instance, in relation to the opening of the Arctic. One should, however, realize that most of these activities are new human activities in a part of ocean space we hardly know. So, they are at least risky from a societal point of view. Again we are exploiting, as we did after James Cook’s ocean exploration in the late 18th century, an environment we hardly know. As a consequence, I am afraid, that again humans will pay price for that. It is the same with near future deep ocean space exploitation of untapped resources such as deep sea mining in Exclusive Economic Zones. I am not saying that we should not do this. I am just saying one should better know what we are doing. And that means a large coordinated investment in the exploration of ocean space, as we do now for outer space. It is bizarre. We are investing so much money in the exploration of Mars, while we ‘forget’ to invest in Earth’s ocean space. And here we live! Something must be wrong with our species. I am convinced that if we would only invest just ten percent of these funds in ocean space exploration, the economic return would be a many fold of the one we are now getting from outer space exploration.

Q: What dedicated missions do you consider it important to develop, eg for carbon-monitoring, for atmosphere or for water etc?

I am afraid your readership will not like this. But I would suggest to place these missions on hold for some time. I suggest that one should invest in ocean space exploration and its supporting international infrastructure. By this our insights in the ocean and earth systems will increase rapidly, and help us to focus. Moreover, we have to integrate the social sciences in future ocean research.

In the dedicated missions you mentioned in your question, the link with societal needs and possible downstream services is easily understood. In what I am proposing this link is more difficult to see. The main reason is that research and monitoring of the inner ocean space is just at its infancy; but it is starting. Yet, one could imagine that a better understanding and monitoring of human activity related ‘hotspots’, like the development of dead zones, algal blooms and may be fishery resources in 4D, will lead to a new type of downstream products. It should also be stressed that for this the present earth observations should be coupled with the information from within ocean space. I think that even such an efficient coupling will lead to new insights and, as a consequence, products.

Q: In recent years, we have heard many warnings about global-scale water shortages, but at the same time we have seen an increase in the number of floods and other water-related disasters around the world. What could an EO mission will be able to achieve in relation to such climate change?

Not much, I think. Better monitoring might lead to being prepared better. But it does not solve the problem. We are the problem, by the way. So again we need new approaches to tackle this issue.

Finally

Q: What do you consider to be the three most important steps to take to protect the human population against the effects of climate change and what will be the key contributions made by satellite technology to each of these?

My problem with this question is that climate change is phrased in such a way that it is something threatening for us. But, who caused the problem? We did! Through our human activities! For me, climate change is an environmental or earth system expression of global scale pollution by human activities. Maybe, our population is too large. I do not know. But history shows us that, as in the 14th century in Europe, when natural climate change was taking place, the system takes care of that.

But I am afraid that the Anthropocene believers will advocate technological solutions for problems of which we the uncertainties do not know well, and that politicians just will go for it. In my opinion we really should live in balance with nature, know our place as just one, be it rather creative species within it, and care more for the environment we are part of.

Coming back to your question, I think that satellite technology is crucial to assist in a transition towards sustainability of society. To be able to access this process one certainly needs environmental information that satellite technology allows for.

BMT ARGOSS

Q: Thank you Mr Wensink for your time, firstly, tell us a bit about your company BMT-Argoss, what it does and how it has grown over the years

We are a global operating company with offices mainly in Europe, Asia and former USSR. We provide support to clients where their activities are being hampered by environmental conditions and where their activities might have impact on the environment.

Q: Explain to us what does your company does and how it operates?

We provide high quality Metocean data, Metocean forecasting, design and operability services, and vessel performance consultancy mainly to the oil and gas and maritime transport markets.

Q: What are the most important competences of BMT- Argoss that help you succeed in the market? What are your main competences?

Amongst others, we have core competences on meteorology, oceanography, modeling, data assimilation, satellite observations and processing and naval architecture.

For us satellite data are an important almost essential source to calibrate and validate our models on which we build and provide our services. We have built up in house a huge quality checked archives of satellite data of wind, waves, currents, sea level and water quality parameters over the last 25 years on which value added services are build upon and around. One of those services are maneuvering and towing of platforms but also the mooring and berthing of vessels in ports.

MARKET VIEWS

Q: What are the key markets that you address? and If you look beyond 2013 where do you see the industry greatest prospects for growth coming from? How will the commercial market evolve or if you perceive emerging markets as an area for expansion?

As a company we are addressing the energy and maritime transport markets. These are interesting and steadily growing markets where environmental data are essential and where solutions are required on a day to day basis.

Q: How do you perceive emerging markets as an area for expansion? Does that type of geographical expansion and diversification change a significant step for the industry?

Our company’s energy market business at the moment is principally in the oil and gas sector, but also the renewable energy sector is steadily emerging. We are focusing on the markets in Asia, West Africa, Russia and to some extent Brazil and the Mediterranean. Important are services related to harsh environments (e.g. deep water, strong currents, high waves, ice) where specific information services are needed for planning and design as well as to support day to day operations. Although the market in the North Sea is declining, many opportunities still exist because the oil majors are leaving the North Sea and smaller oil companies are entering the market and looking for specialist services.

Q: How confident of growth are you in the current environment?

Within the oil and gas sector there is a tendency to move towards managed service contracts. These are turnkey, long-term, framework contracts providing full 24/7 services and usually includes delivery of data, staff, in situ measurements, high-tech back office systems and resources for operational processing of data. We are running major projects with some of the big oil companies and we are heading for more contracts of this kind.

The market size is quite considerable (>>€50m/year) and growing. Despite the current economic downsize and some delays in major projects, it is anticipated that opportunities in the energy market will steadily grow.

On the Maritime transport markets we provide niche services and products related to safety and efficiency associated with Metocean information such as weather forecasting and routing services. However, most of these services are given in near isolation, whilst the market is looking for full turn-key integrated solutions.

We continue to observe that safe navigation and weather avoidance (routing) is still a weak crutch. We see many opportunities in this area (e.g. shipping, environment, Metocean, safety at sea) and satellite data is and will play an important role into this for the next decade.

Regarding the earth observation sector, the major income is still coming from governments. However, I have seen and I expect that the importance of private markets will increase further and significantly in the coming years. For our industry major opportunities exist in geographical areas outside Europe where the infrastructure is less developed than in Europe and where satellites play a crucial role in observing and understanding our environment we operate in.

Q: How do you perceive emerging markets as an area for expansion? Does that type of geographical expansion and diversification change a significant step for the industry?

I have already seen an uptake of the oil and gas sector in certain regions and I am convinced that many opportunities will appear for our members in the oil and gas sector. As chairman of EARSC I have therefore taken initiatives already a couple of years ago to create awareness within our EO sector of opportunities in the energy markets by providing market intelligence to our members, by supporting joint conferences, by establishing working groups and as you are probably aware of one our working group on Geomatics (OGEO) is currently fully integrated in OGP, the Association of Oil and Gas producers.

Q: Can you talk further about how the attractiveness of different countries and different regions is changing?

For our sector the markets outside Europe will become very important and this will require companies to understand these foreign markets, to qualify for these markets and to position for these markets. Hereto, organizations such as ESA and the EU, as well as national bodies are playing an important role for our sector to prepare for this future business.

For the next years and mainly outside Europe major investments (multi billions) are scheduled for exploration and production of oil and gas. Together with these investments strict conditions are being enforced on our clients to develop local economies that are transferred to our sector. This will have impact on our sector and require us to adapt and to develop service companies with local staff in the regions where these investments take place.

EO SERVICE DEVELOPMENT & STAKEHOLDERS

Q: One of the most important dialogue´s governments can have with this industry is connected to our entry into a new place to do business…. Beyond economic policies, what’s the one thing governments can do to better support the sector? What can governments do specifically to help and support the industry?

Governments (but also associations like ours to a certain extent) have an important role to play in helping companies in identifying new markets, to help them in qualifying and positioning companies for those new markets, help them in understanding the legal and financial framework the companies need to work in and help them in removing barriers that prevent or make it difficult for companies to operate.

Q: How should be the effective collaboration between government and the private sector?

Governments are playing already an important role in this by gathering intelligence information through for instance their Embassies but also by developing government to government agreements, by technology programs to position companies to provide the services needed in those new markets. However, I notice a shift in legal and financial requirements in countries where governments can play an important extended role by removing certain exceptional liabilities by providing financial export guarantees.

ABOUT EARSC

_EARSC (the European Association for Remote Sensing Companies) is the European trade association dealing with the geospatial services sector, the EARSC mission is to foster the development of the European Geo-Information Services Industry._ 

Q: As Chair of EARSC, could you describe in a generic sentence what is the EO trade association for you? and what for you are the key responsibilities?

EARSC is for me an important association to help growing our sector by identifying, sharing and help developing business but also to help solving issues which form barriers to our members to growth. My key responsibilities are to identify business issues of our members and to assure that our association adds value and allow them to focus on their business and growth.

Q: In your opinion, what are the main benefits of EARSC membership? How is EARSC developing its membership and services? Is this an area for future priority?

The key benefits of being a member of EARSC is that we have a two way communication from the markets to EARSC members and from EARSC members to the markets to create awareness and to identify business. Secondly, we have a strong communication within the EARSC members to help developing partnership to provide business. 

Q: To what extent has the EARSC strategy changed over the past years i.e. evolution, association business model and what are the main objectives for the year 2013? and What are some of the key industry issues currently under review?

Our industry has changed in the last 10 years and will be changing in the next 10 years. Over the last 10 years our industry has grown significantly at around 8% per annum and has become very professional. As an association we are looking forward continuously to identify together with our members what the upcoming challenges will be and develop strategies to anticipate and overcome them. 

Q: What would you say are the most important strategic and operational advantages EARSC need in implementing the current strategy or driving those changes that EARSC is starting to contemplate?

Since it was formed in 1989, nearly 25 years ago, EARSC has operated as a sort of club where the directors have needed to take on actions themselves. This worked very effectively whilst the EO industry was mainly concerned with R&D activities. EARSC took a significant step forward in 2004 with the appointment of our executive secretary and has taken another one with the appointment of our secretary general in 2011. Now we have become more widely recognised as being a serious voice representing the industry it is time to consider the next step again.

As I have described for my own business, today the industry is evolving from this environment of R&D and government led business to one with a much more commercial focus. In my opinion this is as a result of many factors one of which is the much easier access to multiple sources of data; not just multiple satellites but also in-situ data and many others. So, as the industry is evolving so should EARSC. I have encouraged the move to interact with the oil and gas community and look now for us to work with others. ESA’s lead into working with International Financial Institutions can be one path, the insurance industry could be another; we shall have to evaluate this and other possibilities over the next few months. At the same time, I want the association to do more to help companies in the export market.

This comes just at the point when GMES / Copernicus will start to deliver and we should ensure that it is the European industry that reap the benefits of European taxpayer investment – to deliver an economic return to Europe.

Hence one of our key objectives for 2013 is to re-evaluate the strategy for EARSC. We have spent the last few months completing a comprehensive survey of the industry and so we now have a good picture of what it looks like, where it is working and what are the strategic priorities – as well as the difficulties that it is facing.

This will allow us to examine what we think the Association should be doing for it’s members and to adjust it’s activities and also its governance accordingly. At the same time, we face an increasing need to engage – even more than we have been – with the European Commission and this must be factored into the deliberations about our future set-up.

So it will be an important year for EARSC and I look forward to steering the Association into a position to play this role effectively.

Q: How does EARSC see its relationship with the other major trade organisations developing over the next 5 years?

For EARSC it is important that we don’t operate in isolation but that we are well connected to all stakeholders of our sector, i.e. our members, policy makers and other associations representing our suppliers and clients. Therefore we are in continuous discussion with ESA, the EU and national governments but also with associations representing the customers of our members with the objective to help our members to operate smooth and to grow.

FUTURE

Q: What is your view of the outlook for the sector? What factors are most important to this industry? And how this industry should be moving?

The economic outlook for our sector is very good. Different market intelligence reports show that our sector will grow in the next decade. The most important geographical growth areas for growth are in Asia, Russia, Africa and South America but Europe will still be important to build capabilities for our members. Our sector will offer employment to many people in and outside Europe. However, the competition in the sector from the USA and also from other areas outside Europe will be huge and therefore a European export strategy is needed to position European companies and to foster their growth. These are also the areas where we as an association would like to help our members in developing their business with our motto that a strong sector will both foster and require a strong association.

BMT-ARGOSS

ENVIRONMENT DIRECTORATE

Could you briefly explain your daily activities at your Directorate What exactly is the role of your team?
How is the liaison with other programmes, units and directorates?

The Environment Directorate, of which I am responsible, is composed of several units dealing with specific subjects: Environmental Technologies, Management of Natural Resources – which includes the Earth Observation sector -, Climate Change and Natural Hazards. In addition, we are cooperating with the Communications Unit, as well as with other relevant DGs (DG ENVIRONMENT, DG CLIMA, DG ENTREPRISE, JRC etc) in order to ensure that new programmes address the most relevant policy needs and that project results may feed policy development and implementation.

How would you see the activities changing with the move from FP7 to H2020?

To remain globally competitive and improve EU citizens’ quality of life, Europe needs to rapidly improve its capacity of transforming research into products and services.

This has been at the heart of the Innovation Union, one of the flagship initiatives under the EU’s growth strategy, Europe 2020. The EU’s new research and innovation programme, Horizon 2020, will be used to implement this initiative.

Compared to the past, Horizon 2020 will support all strategies of the innovation cycle, providing seamless and coherent funding from idea to market, through a natural integration and continuum between research and innovation. It will be implemented using measures which promote wider participation from industry and SMEs, and in combination with actions promoting the completion of a truly integrated European Research Area.

The support to research and innovation is seen as a key policy supporting the competitiveness of Europe, and no longer as a “funding agency” job. This radically changes our job into a much more strategic one.

How important is Earth Observation as a tool for projects under your responsibility?

FP7 projects have contributed to the development and strengthening of the European capacity to aggregate, access and develop global Earth Observation datasets and information products. These are essential for underpinning environmental research and innovation in sectors such as Climate Change, Biodiversity, Water, Land Use etc… More cross-cutting integration will be required in Europe in the period 2014-2020 in order to further advance the implementation and use of Global Environmental Datasets and the information that can be derived from them.

More specifically Research and Innovation is required in the following domains to support Environmental research and the development of models to predict the functioning of the various Earth Systems:
1) Developing technical solutions and applications to enable a full and open data sharing capability as advocated through the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Data Sharing Principles and the EU Open Data Policy, to develop the required knowledge bases to address the Societal Challenges ;
2) Build the next generation information system, enabling sharing, discovery and full, open and unrestricted access to Earth Observation datasets, engaging with the private sector to leverage emerging technologies and develop services, and citizens to develop citizens’ observatories, citizens governance, etc.;
3) Increase the robustness of global observation by strengthening and developing in- situ observation networks through the use of novel technologies.

The importance of Earth Observation for our activities is accounted for and demonstrated by a dedicated group that oversees the implementation of Community

Research and Innovation in the domain of Earth Observation, is the contact point for the International Group on Earth Observation, and cooperates with Copernicus and the Joint Research Centre on all Earth Observation related issues.

How do you see the flagship EC programme Copernicus contributing to the goals of DG R&I?

Addressing global societal challenges requires a thorough understanding of the Earth system, the underlying processes and their interactions. This will improve the forecasting of the future state of the environment, enabling us to sustainably manage fragile ecosystems and natural resources. Comprehensive, sustained and coordinated in-situ, airborne and space-borne EO data and its integration into a holistic modelling and analysis framework is a prerequisite.

For this, the following components are essential:

• a data collection and dissemination infrastructure, ensuring data interoperability and consistency, based on agreed standards and supporting easy access to free, open and readily available data without any restrictions on its use;
• a retrieval / modelling environment supporting the generation and operational provision of a range of societal benefit services allowing a continuous monitoring of the state of the Earth system and the prediction of its future evolution; and
• a research framework supporting a continuous improvement and evolution of the system by utilizing re-analysis, taking into account of new data from scientific experiments and conducting observing system simulations to boost innovation.

Copernicus basically will cover the first two components and as such it is essential for addressing a range of societal challenges. In particular the launching of the Sentinel missions (the Copernicus space component) will represent a tremendous opportunity for the research sector as it is a unique programme that will have no equivalent at international level and that will deliver accessible Earth Observation Data that are strategic for the broad environmental research. Together with an appropriate research framework Copernicus will allow implementing policy monitoring tools and foster research to continuously improve the system.

Sentinel©ESA

How do you work with the rest of the EC (and particularly DG Enterprise) on the Copernicus programme?

The activities of DG RTD and DG ENTR regarding Earth Observation are very complementary. The work carried out under the GMES programme focuses on the delivery of services whereas the programs implemented under DG R&I are focussing on building the knowledge base necessary for the development of the services and also on new avenues regarding the in-situ monitoring of the Environment. In particular the Environment programme is delivering research and innovation products that are necessary for the development of Copernicus services. The different models that have been developed in the past FP and more specifically during FP7 are of utmost interest for the implementation of the Copernicus services in domains such as Climate prediction, Ocean Forecasting, Hazard preparedness and emergency management. Regarding new avenues to developing innovative systems to observe/monitor the environment 5 new R&D projects have been launched recently under the Environment program with a great potential to strengthen the in-situ component of Earth Observation Systems. These projects are based on the concept of Citizen Observatories and will take advantage of the latent capability in everybody’s mobile phone/tablet/laptop to monitor the environment. Also 2 topics have been included in the current joint call “The ocean of tomorrow” that will permit conducting research and innovation activities for the development of new sensors for the monitoring of the ocean. Both R&I activities, Citizen Observatories, and new Ocean sensors are direct contribution to the in-situ monitoring of the environment and to the Copernicus programme.

COOPERATION & PARTNERSHIP WITH EO INDUSTRY

What do you look for in cooperative efforts between European Institutions and Industry? What type of dialogue mechanism could take place with the industry

Industry is a key to the development of Observing System as Observatories rely on cutting edge technologies spreading over several industrial sectors such as telecommunications, energy, new material, computing, etc. SMEs would provide their capacity to deliver new solutions for dedicated sensors, data processing, and new services. As indicated in my previous response concerning Copernicus a significant part of the resources of FP7 is dedicated to technology research. In those projects the participation of Industry and SME’s was encouraged in an active way. So a significant number of SME’s are already present in FP7 projects dealing with Earth Observation and monitoring that could in the future be involved in further system development and service delivery.

Regarding Horizon 2020, the involvement of the industrial sector will be ensured from the onset by making cooperative efforts mandatory. As indicated in the Commission proposal for the Societal Challenge Climate Action, Resource Efficiency, and Raw Materials the role of Industry should be central in the implementation of Horizon 2020,

In this context it is important that a dialogue takes place with the Earth Observation industry. In this respect, the GEO initiative is planning to set up at global level and Industrial Forum – this was a decision made at the last GEO Plenary meeting in Brazil in November 2012. The forum should be launched this year in view of developing a dialogue with the Private and Not-for-Profit Sectors. The rationale for the establishment of this forum is twofold 1) it would help understanding how the private sector could support the development of GEOSS 2) it would also be used to inform the private sector how it could benefit from the Earth Observation data collected through GEOSS.

How important is the role of industry in the DG R&I Environmental Research programme?

FP7 attaches great importance to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). The Lisbon European Council, in 2000, set the ambitious objective for Europe to become the “most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010”. A year later, the Gothenburg Council added an environmental dimension to this objective. Underpinning this strategy is the European Research Area, which recognises the importance of research-intensive SMEs for sustainable economic growth and employment in Europe.
Reflecting the desire to encourage them to take part in environmental and other areas of research, the aim for FP7 was to allocate at least an indicative 15% of the total EU funding of roughly €50 billion for 2007–13 to SMEs, and this objective is going to be largely achieved.

Should further measures be developed to encourage greater industry participation?

The Commission proposal for a council decision establishing the Specific Programme Implementing Horizon 2020 makes provisions for greater industry participation. With regards to this, I can only make reference to the Commission proposal regarding industry in Horizon 2020:

For achieving sustainable growth in Europe, the contribution of public and private players must be optimised. Horizon 2020 includes scope and a clear set of criteria for setting up public-public and public private partnerships. Public-private partnerships can be based on a contractual arrangement between public and private actors and can in limited cases be institutionalised public-private partnerships (such as Joint Technology Initiatives and other Joint Undertakings).

Particular attention will be paid to ensuring a broad approach to innovation, which is not only limited to the development of new products and services on the basis of scientific and technological breakthroughs, but which also incorporates aspects such as the use of existing technologies in novel applications, continuous improvement, non-technological and social innovation. Only a holistic approach to innovation can at the same time tackle societal challenges and give rise to new competitive businesses and industries.

For the societal challenges and the enabling and industrial technologies in particular, there will be a particular emphasis on supporting activities which operate close to the end-users and the market, such as demonstration, piloting or proof-of-concept. This will also include, where appropriate, activities in support of social innovation, and support to demand side approaches such as pre-standardisation or pre-commercial procurement, procurement of innovative solutions, standardisation and other user-centered measures to help accelerate the deployment and diffusion of innovative products and services into the market. In addition, there will be sufficient room for bottom-up approaches and open, light and fast schemes under each of the challenges and technologies to provide Europe’s best researchers, entrepreneurs and enterprises with the opportunity to put forward breakthrough solutions of their choice.

FUNDING

How do you see the planning and budgeting process in future programmes concerning EO?

As indicated earlier the Horizon 2020 Societal Challenge Climate Action, Resource Efficiency, and Raw Materials includes and action to: “Developing comprehensive and sustained global environmental observation and information systems”

The aim of this action is to ensure the delivery of the long-term data and information required to address this challenge. Activities shall focus on the capabilities, technologies and data infrastructures for earth observation and monitoring that can continuously provide timely and accurate information, forecasts and projections. Free, open and unrestricted access to interoperable data and information will be encouraged.

Now it is too early to indicate what kind of budgeting process will be attached to this action. However generally speaking the various Horizon 2020 activities will be planned following the Horizon 2020 specific program decision with a strong involvement of the member states and stakeholders. Continuous guidance will be provided through dedicated advisory groups representing stakeholders.

Will your Directorate be able to bring opportunities for the downstream service providers?

Absolutely! Let me give you an example. More research is needed to better understand the link between ecosystem functioning, biodiversity and its socioeconomic impact. A better knowledge of these links will allow predicting better the evolution of ecosystem services due to climate change. This will foster the development of downstream services for managing ecosystem services e.g. for air quality applications. There are many more examples like this. The direct involvement of the industrial sector from the onset of these activities will foster downstream services and spinoffs.

Are there further policies beyond Research & Innovation that you consider could be effective in helping the development of EO industry?

There is a range of policies and treaties which benefit from EO data given that appropriate monitoring tools are available. These are e.g. climate policies by supporting emission trading and deforestation policies (e.g. see UNFCCC’s REDD+ initiative), environmental policies – by e.g. monitoring ozone or waste and water quality – or transportation policies – by assessing infrastructures and their use -, just to give a few examples. EO industry will all benefit from their need for products and services derived from spatial data.

However, there is a single most effective policy from which EO industry would benefit. This is a free and open access to data with no restriction on its use. As demonstrated by many economic studies this will boost innovation and growth.

This opening of the Earth Observation datasets has been stimulated by the GEO initiative in which the Commission is an active member. In the 2010 Beijing Declaration, GEO Members committed to implement the GEOSS Data Sharing Principles by developing flexible policy frameworks that enable a more open data environment, and these Principles have influenced national and regional data policies, including INSPIRE and Copernicus in Europe and Landsat in the US, facilitating the uptake of Earth observation data by a wide range of user communities.

By promoting data sharing, Europe is able to deliver benefits to citizens throughout the world, including those in developing countries. And in return, Europe is able to derive benefits through the use of data shared with us by our partners in GEO.

Further, by making Earth observations freely and openly available, without any restrictions, we are able to stimulate the European service sector to develop new services and products. This leads to growth, job creation in Europe and the provision of societal benefits for European citizens.

Could you explain the role of EC at GEO as co-chair activity?

The European Commission is one of the 88 GEO Members and has been co-chairing the initiative since its creation, together with Co-Chairs from the USA, China and South- Africa. The Commission is represented in GEO by DG RTD.

The GEO initiative is of a strategic nature for the European Union, given its clear relevance to a number of important European policies in the area of sustainable development, environmental research and international co-operation. The EU is strongly represented within the GEO and is taking a leadership role in the development of the GEOSS, with the Commission very much to the forefront. The overall European approach to the GEO is co-ordinated through a High Level Working Group, which meets on a regular basis before GEO Executive Committee and Plenary Meetings.

The contribution of the European Union, coordinated by the Commission, to the GEO initiative is significant, including: the support given through the Space Theme of FP7 to GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security), which is a major contribution of Europe to GEO; the contribution of the INSPIRE Directive (Infrastructure for Spatial information in Europe), which is a powerful tool to overcome the major barriers still impeding availability and accessibility to Earth Observation Data in Europe; and finally a major contribution from the FP7 Cooperation Environment theme in terms of R&D effort to provide GEO with research elements necessary to develop and implement the GEOSS.

How can GEOSS help the European EO services industries?

As the “G” in GEOSS stands for Global and as the major societal challenges that confront Europe today are global in nature, e.g., climate change, food security, etc. Europe needs to have access to global datasets to understand and address these challenges. And these can only be assembled “at a reasonable cost” within a global framework, as Europe does not have the financial capability to acquire all of the data it requires on a global scale using its own resources. Data sharing and access to data is one of the important keys. If our partners in GEO would not share their data with us, we would not have access to the global data Europe needs.

By promoting data sharing, Europe delivers benefits to citizens throughout the world, including those in developing countries. In return, we can derive benefits for Europe through the use of data shared with us by our partners in GEO. Furthermore, data sharing is stimulating the service sector by making Earth observations freely and openly available, without any restrictions, we allow the European service sector to develop new services and products. The European service industry will benefit from it. It will leads to growth and job creation in Europe and the provision of societal benefits for European citizens.

What are your views on the GEO decision regarding Engaging Industry Support in the Implementation of GEOSS?
EARSC along with the AAEO has written to the GEO secretariat proposing a stronger engagement between industry and GEO, do you support this and how could you see that working in practice?
GEOSS has been mentioned as being able to provide a “window” to display private sector capabilities and products. How would this work?

The Commission supports the decision made at the 9th GEO Plenary meeting to explore the possibility for further engagement of the private sector in the GEOSS implementation.

While the burden of investing in Earth observation infrastructure and data is generally carried by governments, there is a shared understanding that not only the public sector, but also the private sector benefits from increased data sharing, and from the exploitation of integrated Earth observations for the provision of societal benefits. In a world where public budgets are under increasing pressure, and where the private sector can increasingly benefit as users of Earth observations, GEO should define a suitable framework to allow and encourage private sector contributions to develop and grow GEOSS. Private sector engagement would bring additional expertise and resources in all domains associated with GEOSS development and to SBA-related services as well as additional political support for ensuring continuation of the GEO action.

From another perspective, the private sector also represents a big “consumer” of Earth Observation data and information. In this regard, its main interest in contributing directly to GEO would be to access GEOSS resources, both for provision of commercial services and for the provision of institutional services, under contract from governmental entities. GEO may also work as a multiplier of private sector R&D resources. GEOSS could be a “window” to display private sector capabilities and products and, for private companies, an operationally sustained GEOSS could represent a good opportunity to operationally run, on a long term basis, many of its components.

FUTURE

At the end of the interview, here is the opportunity for your final thoughts on the future development of the EO geo-information service sector? Do you think the European Earth Observation activities are on the right track?
And In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges the commercial earth observation industry is facing in the years to come? What kind of downstream service industry would Europe benefit from?

The challenge for the EO geo-information service sector depends on the easy access to regional and global Erath Observation datasets. The Commission has already laid the foundation for Europe’s participation in GEO in the period 2014-2020 with the proposal we made to the Parliament and Council for the next Framework Program for Research and Innovation, Horizon 2020.

This includes, as indicated earlier, specific references to GEO, the GEOSS and an activity on “Developing comprehensive and sustained global environmental observation and information systems”, with the aim of ensuring the delivery of the long-term data and information required to address the societal challenges set out in Horizon 2020.

However, to ensure the support of the Council and European Parliament for both this proposal and for GEO post-2015, it is vital that we are able to demonstrate that the GEOSS has real substance and relevance to it, which means it must begin to deliver societal benefits to users.

The Council and Parliament will want to see that the GEO and GEOSS are working well, allowing Europe to contribute globally, but also bringing benefits to Europe.

So, for example, in the domain of data sharing, where Europe is making great efforts to open up its data and to share it with our partners in GEO, we also need our partners in GEO outside of Europe to share their data with us.

The biggest challenges ahead are making data consistent and interoperable and dealing with ‘Big Data’ at the same time. For this a close dialog between researchers, the service industry and the IT sector is needed for building the required infrastructures.

Downstream services supporting Green Economy and Blue Growth, both emerging industries within Europe, are in particular considered of great benefit.

And we will have to be able to demonstrate to our political masters that our investment in the development of the GEOSS, in data sharing and interoperability, does bring benefits by contributing to growth, job creation in Europe and the provision of societal benefits for citizens in Europe and across the globe.

Citizen Observatories©Sensorscope.ch

EO-MAG -Interview with A. Tilche EC-DG Reserach & Development.pdf

GEO

Could you briefly explain your daily activities as mainly being responsible for managing programmatic and administrative support to GEO? What are the most significant achievements at the GEO Secretariat?

Like most Secretariats, our primary job is to facilitate and support the work of our Member States and Participating Organizations. Today, the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) is comprised of 89 Members (88 Countries and the European Commission), 67 Participating Organizations, and 7 Observer Organizations, so, the coordination components associated with our work is substantial. You can see from the attached map (fig.1), that our geographic coverage is quite large. Yet, there are still gaps in selected parts of the developing world, most notably in Africa, the Pacific Island States and South America.

The primary objectives of GEO are to improve and coordinate observation systems, advance broad, open data policies and practices, foster increased use of Earth observation data and information, and ultimately build capacity. We do this through the design, construction and implementation of an annual Work Plan whereby GEO Members and Participating Organizations identify, propose and conduct Tasks which address Strategic Targets in the nine GEO Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs) (fig.2) – agriculture, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, weather and water. A lot of our work is centered on communicating the importance of integrated Earth observations, and maximizing the use of data and information across these nine SBAs.

fig.1. Created in 2005, to develop a coordinated and sustained Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) to enhance decision making in nine Societal Benefit Areas (SBAs). GEO today: 89 Members, 67 Participating Organizations

fig.2. A Global, Coordinated, Comprehensive and Sustained System of Observing Systems

The most significant achievements of the entire GEO Community, and by extension the Secretariat, have been both programmatic and political. Observations that have traditionally been collected for one application area are being used in other application areas, therefore leveraging them to a much greater extent than previously planned. GEO Member States are increasingly sharing data so that global monitoring initiatives like the Global Forest Observation Initiative (GFOI), GEO Global Agriculture Monitoring (GEOGLAM) and GEO Biodiversity Observation Network (GEOBON) can be built on data and information that is both harmonized internationally and quality-assured.

GEO has also had a positive impact on a number of policy and/or political decisions (fig.3 below). The change in the U.S. Landsat data policy was announced at the GEO Ministerial Summit in South Africa – a decision that has resulted in more than 9 million downloads of Landsat data over the internet at no charge to the user. And most recently, the International Charter for Space and Major Disasters announced universal access to its assets for all GEO Members.

What exactly is the role of your team in coordinating the development and implementation of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS), and maintaining effective working relationships with the broader GEO community?

Each Member and many of the Participating Organizations own and operate their own observing systems – including space-based, airborne and surface-based systems. Participating in GEO allows these individual Earth observation systems to contribute to a Global Earth Observation System of Systems or GEOSS, resulting in a framework, a construct, actually an infrastructure that is greater than the sum of its individual parts. Like any system with different owners, policies and practices differ among the owners. The role of our team is to find the areas of commonality, increase and advance interoperability and strive to reduce the barriers that limit the full development and implementation of GEOSS. As one might imagine, communication is key to working in this international environment. And with English being the language with which we conduct our business, communicating in a clear, open and transparent fashion for all 89 Members, not just the native English speakers, is essential.

How is GEO coordinating the network of existing and future observing Systems? And how relevant is GEO to sustainable development?

GEO leverages the work of other organizations to coordinate the network of existing and future observing systems. A good example is that of the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS), an organization which brings together many of the world’s space agencies. And in recent years, as the space-coordination arm of GEO, CEOS has substantially revised and refined its agenda or programme of study to help meet GEO’s goals and objectives. Similar conversations are occurring with organizations like the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) and the World Climate Research Programme (WCRP) for the climate component of GEOSS, with the Partnership for Observation of the Global Oceans (POGO) and the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) for the ocean component of GEOSS, and with the European Environment Agency (EEA) for prototyping the surface-based or in situ coordination so desperately needed for full Earth observation integration to be realized.

In reference to GEO’s relevance to sustainable development, one has only to look at our nine SBAs. Each one – agriculture, biodiversity, climate, disasters, ecosystems, energy, health, weather and water – pertains directly or indirectly to sustainable development. This, however, should be no surprise given the genesis of GEO closely followed the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development. In 2003, Environment Ministers from the world’s industrialized nations (G8) recognized the unmet potential that Earth observations can play in addressing many of society’s key environmental challenges, and in 2005 the intergovernmental mechanism of GEO was established with the Secretariat located in Geneva, Switzerland.

GEOSS and GMES (Copernicus)

How is the liaison with other programmes as the European Earth Observation programme, GMES?

We are fortunate that Europe has coined GMES as the European component of GEOSS. As indicated above regarding our EEA discussions, the policy alignment of GMES with GEOSS has a significant positive impact on both efforts. For example, to the best of my knowledge, EEA is the only organization that is attempting to tackle the issue of increased coordination of in situ observations across domains. If successful in Europe, this would serve as a substantial contribution to global coordination (and leadership) for in situ observations. GEOSS implementation has benefitted substantially from the European Commission’s 7th Framework Programme (FP7) where potential grantees are asked to identify how their research projects will advance GEOSS implementation. We are asking other GEO Members to undertake similar efforts. And lastly, although I was not personally involved in the deliberations, I imagine that GEO’s global advocacy for broad, open data policies had some impact on the European Union’s proposed GMES data policy.

As you may know GMES governance is being discussed. Are we very far away to think that GEOSS governance could serve as a model? What about data policies?

This is actually a more complicated question than it may first appear. As a voluntary organization, GEO has no authority to mandate or require that a Member or Participating Organization takes any particular action. And therefore, traditional thought would likely drive a governance model toward a fully-sanctioned body with legal mandates. Yet, what we have observed in the few short years of GEO’s existence, is that substantial influence (with resultant actions) can be exercised in selected areas – data policies is one such example. Combining this fact with the speed at which many, if not most, international organizations reach consensus and ultimately affect change may argue for environmental governance mechanisms to be more like GEO. At the very least, GEO could be used more extensively to test, in a quasi research and development mode, policies and practices before they are transitioned to, and adopted by, operational entities.

How do you see the role of GEOSS in multilateral environmental agreements (MEAs)?

Following the last question regarding environmental governance, I believe the early efforts with GFOI and GEOGLAM are, in fact, prototyping what might actually result in more formal MEAs.

How do you see the future steps for GEOSS and GMES?

As previously discussed, the GMES data policy and the early in situ coordination efforts (by EEA) are proceeding nicely and will continue to be good steps for GEOSS and GMES. It also goes without saying that most, if not all, the GEO SBAs will not only benefit from, but need GMES to materialize. We understand the funding challenges that lie ahead, but are optimistic that the gains to be made from full implementation of GMES will outweigh the costs.

Full and open sharing of data between systems is essential. How is building the architecture for the technical operation of the system of systems (features like data capture, data collection, processing, dissemination, storage/archiving, exchange, products and services, etc.)?

As one might expect, each of these functions is progressing differently in different places. The overall architecture for GEOSS does not call for each of these functions to be performed in one centralized location. For example, over the last few years, the strategy to seek individual data sets for GEOSS registration has been replaced with a strategy to reach out to data brokers – organizations or entities who already have responsibility for conducting each of these functions for their respective data and information – and to develop interoperability arrangements between databases and organizations. This action has resulted in benefits accruing on both sides. GEO Members are benefitting from access to increased data and information, and partners of the individual brokers are being exposed to data and information across a broader suite of SBAs than they had originally.

What has not yet been fully exploited is the development of value-added products and services downstream from each and every one of these data sources. It is in this downstream development component where the true and substantial economic value lies – not in the actual data stream itself.

Dialogue with EO Industry

What will cooperative efforts between GEO and Industry bring? And what type of dialogue mechanisms could take place with the service industry?

I firmly believe the cooperative efforts between GEO and Industry will bring the value-added products and services that have not yet been realized from Earth observation data. If you believe, as I do, that the economic value of geospatial data lies in the products and services produced from these data, and not in the data itself, then GEO can focus its efforts upstream, while the commercial sector focuses its efforts downstream producing value-added products and services. From my perspective, we have just begun to tap the potential economic value of geospatial data and information with examples of products and services built around the GPS, marine and weather domains. Much remains to be exploited.

How can your organization help our industry, and how can we help you?

Less than two months ago at our annual Plenary meeting, GEO Members approved a much broader strategy for stakeholder engagement in GEO which includes involvement with the private sector. We have had preliminary discussions with EARSC and other Associations (of commercial companies) to help frame the best way forward. As implied above, I believe GEO can provide a marketplace for commercially produced products and services thereby helping your industry, and in return GEO Members and Participating Organizations will benefit from enhanced applications of Earth observation data and information. These enhanced applications will be used to save lives and property during disasters, bring clean water to those who need it, ensure more stable food supplies for the world’s poor, mitigate the impacts of a changing climate, help create an energy secure world, and the list goes on. There is no end to the creativity and potential that exists when Earth observations become more widely available.

In your opinion, what are the biggest challenges the commercial Earth observation industry is facing in the years to come? What kind of downstream service industry would Europe benefit from? Is the European Earth observation community on the right track?

At the risk of being criticized by those who face these challenges on a daily basis, one of the biggest challenges facing the commercial Earth observation industry is likely to be the uncertainty associated with what actions governments will take and when these actions will be taken. In my experience, there is usually a fair amount of confusion regarding roles and responsibilities between the public and private sectors, and sorting out the public-good components of a programme from those that are (or will be) commercially viable into the future is not easy.

What is your opinion on the development of the EO market?

Much progress has certainly been made, but you can tell from my previous responses, that in my opinion, it falls very short of its full potential.

Funding

How do you see the planning and budgeting process in GEOSS? What in your opinion is a suitable budget envelope for the years to come for an operation system?

Planning and budgeting for GEOSS occurs at several levels – first and foremost, it is the substantial resources that Members put into planning, development, operation and maintenance of observing systems. Without these national and international investments, there would be no systems to allow the creation of a system of systems. In addition to the actual infrastructure costs, the investments made in conducting science and research are equally substantial. Again, without these investments, the GEO Work Plan would be a shadow of itself. And lastly, but to a much lesser degree, Members and Participating Organizations make voluntary contributions for Secretariat operations. As financial pressures for governments mount, we must all do a better job of showing the added benefit that can be accrued by more, not less, coordination and cooperation. Participation in GEO has facilitated multi-lateral funding arrangements allowing project costs to be spread among partners, thereby reducing the financial liabilities of a given party. We expect these arrangements to increase substantially in the future.

How do you see the future steps for the next GEOSS implementation plan?

As we move toward the end of the first 10-year Implementation Plan, I expect that we will see more globally integrated monitoring initiatives, like GFOI, GEOGLAM and GEOBON, but across the other SBAs. The Energy SBA, for example, in my opinion, is primed for a globally integrated initiative.

Future

At the end of the interview, here is the opportunity for your final thoughts on the future development of the geo-information service sector? Do you think the Global Earth Observation activities are on the right track? And the European ones?

I am extremely excited about the future development of the geo-information service sector. Although we have discussed many challenges throughout this interview, I am quite optimistic that almost everyone wants to see things work better. I also believe very strongly in the power of place – the place where we were born, the place where we live, even the place where we will die. Integrated geospatial information is a prerequisite for unleashing that power, and we in GEO look forward to working with you on this very important task.

Biography

Barbara J. Ryan is Secretariat Director of the intergovernmental Group on Earth Observations (GEO) located in Geneva, Switzerland. In this capacity, she leads the Secretariat in coordinating the activities of nearly 90 Member States and 50 Participating Organizations who are striving to integrate Earth observations so that informed decisions can be made across nine Societal Benefit Areas including agriculture, biodiversity, climate, ecosystems, energy, disasters, health, water and weather.

Before assuming this position in July 2012, she was the Director of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Space Programme. She had responsibility for the space-based component of the WMO Global Observing System (GOS), coordinated space-based assets to meet the needs of WMO Members in the topical areas of weather, water, climate and related natural disasters, and also served as the technical focal point for WMO’s activities with GEO. Before joining WMO in October 2008, she was the Associate Director for Geography at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) in Reston, Virginia where she had responsibility for the Landsat, remote sensing, geography and civilian mapping programs of the agency. It was under her leadership that implementation of the Landsat data policy was reformed to release all data over the internet at no additional cost to the user — an action that has resulted in the release of more than 9 million Landsat scenes to date. As the 2007 Chair of the international Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) she led the space-agency response to the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) satellite requirements for sustained measurement of the GCOS Essential Climate Variables (ECVs). She holds a Bachelor´s degree in Geology from the State University of New York at Cortland, a Master´s degree in Geography from the University of Denver, and a Master´s degree in Civil Engineering from Stanford University.

More information at www.earthobservations.org