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The European Commission and the European External Action Service organised two regional workshops on Space Applications in Latin America early September in Santiago,Chile and La Paz, Bolivia.

The purpose of these workshops was to explore cooperation opportunities with Latin American countries by sharing information on the use of Space applications, mainly on Earth observation and satellite navigation, through regional workshops for a group of Latin American countries.

The key aim of the Space Applications workshops was the implementation of the ‘Space Strategy for Europe’s adopted in October 2017, as well as the promotion of activities from EU Member States and ESA. Moreover, the workshops raised awareness about European space actors showing how space data can be used for policy making, academia, operations and to support SMEs and start-ups.

EARSC was invited by the European Commission to participate in both missions in two ways :

  • Presentation given by EARSC Secretariat
  • Presentations given by EARSC members focused on local cases (or Latin America) related to their priority areas which are: precision agriculture, mining, forestry, disaster.

This was a great opportunity to open the doors to the EO market in Latin America, implement EARSC’s internationalisation strategy, as well as present members’ solutions and how they could contribute to the Latin American User needs.

The workshops have been funded by the Partnership Instrument (PI) and organised under the Technical Assistance Information Exchange Instrument (TAIEX) of the European Commission.

Download workshop materials here

This is the third survey performed by EARSC. The industry survey help us to analyse the state of the EO Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future.

The survey was conducted during the 1st quarter of 2017; figures are for the Financial Year (FY) 2016. EARSC first conducted this survey in 2013 (FY2012) with a second one in 2015 (FY2014). The series of data is allowing a good indication of trends to be developed.

The responses show that the EO services industry is employing over 7800 highly skilled staff and turns over some 1247m Euro per annum. These and many more results are explained in the brochure which can be downloaded here.

We plan to revisit the industry facts and figures every two years. Regular survey will be essential to develop a full understanding of the impact that policy decisions are having on the industry.

For more information see the EARSC surveys

Geoff Sawyer, EARSC SG, participated in the ISRSE symposium on 8th-12th May in Pretoria (South Africa) where he presented in 2 sessions. Thanks to the help of the local organisers, EARSC also organised a B2B session gathering 5 companies from Europe and 5 from Africa.

The 37th International Symposium on Remote Sensing of Environment (ISRSE-37) took place in Tshwane, South Africa 8 to 12 May 2017. The theme was “Earth Observation for Development and Adaptation to a Changing World”.

The 2017 Symposium was the second time in this millennium that the African continent hosted ISRSE. It coincided with the implementation of the recently adopted African Space Policy and Strategy, as well as rapid development in African space science and technology programmes.

EARSC notably organised This was the second such event we have organised with the first one being during the AARSE conference last October in Kampala. In each case we are grateful for local support without which such an initiative would not be possible. We had 5 companies from Europe and 5 from Africa which participated. Very short introductory presentations from the European companies was followed by a “speed-dating” session providing each company to introduce itself to the others. Given the difficulty I had separating some of the company pairs the exchanges were quite productive. Participants agreed at the end that the formula was a good one and we shall seek to recreate similar opportunities in the future. There is strong support for further exchanges with African companies and we’ll seek opportunities to do so. At the end we managed to get Tidiane Ouattara to talk about GMES and Africa, the call for proposal is still open until August 21st.

Read Geoff’s blog on the conference.
Download his presentations on eoMALL and on Trends in Commercial EO.

As part of the celebrations of the 60th anniversary of the signing of the Treaties of Rome and to commemorate the role of EU Space Policy and programmes in support of European Union integration, Rome hosted a high-level conference on ‘Space Policy for EU integration’ on June 14 and 15 June.

More than 200 representatives of the European Space sector, from industry representatives to government, Space agency and EU decision makers, gathered to reflect on three themes: Space as driver of EU integration, Space as a motor of EU growth and Space at the service of EU citizens. Europe’s Copernicus and Galileo flagship Space programmes featured as the stars of the event.

Giovanni Sylos-Labini (EARSC Vice Chairman) represented EARSC at this event. His intervention focused on the downstream sector reaffirming that it is time to establish an industrial strategy for attracting private financing and contributing to the sustainability of the European Space industry.

Read more about the event on Copernicus website

Watch the interview of Giovanni Sylos-Labini by EU Reporter

The workshop “Improving EO services industry involvement in EU space programmes and initiatives” organised by EARSC with the support of the European Commission was held on 26 April 2017 in DG-GROW in Brussels .

The workshop aimed at discussing concrete ways for the improved industry involvement in the exploitation of Copernicus Services and the delivery of GEO vision. The event attracted more than 90 people.

The morning session underlined the key priorities of GEO with regards to industry engagement notably through the example of the GEO-CRADLE project. Project partners provided a concrete account of tools that can help EU industry develop business in the Balkans, North Africa and Middle East.

The afternoon session brought together representatives from the European Entrusted Entities (EEEs), institutional stakeholders and industrial actors. After presenting the preliminary findings of a study undertaken by EARSC and PWC, a series of three round-tables consisting of representatives of EEEs and EO services company representatives, provided the opportunity for a lively exchange on the current interfaces between the Copernicus services and the industry.

Presentations and more information are available at EARSC’s website.

EARSC organised a session on Industry Contribution to SDGs on 20th June alongside the 11th GEO European Projects Workshop.

The session on “Leveraging EO services to help monitoring SDGs, the industry contribution” took place in the framework of the European GEO projects workshop from 19-21 June 2017 in Helsinki.

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are being launched with an emphasis on collecting data that will be extensive and specific enough to serve these needs. They are designed to balance the three dimensions of sustainable development: the economic, social and environmental. European EO industry can help achieve the SDGs by providing critical information on natural resources, government operations, public services, and population demographics. Industry helps on the SDG implementation role, monitoring, reporting, and the facilitation and shaping of reporting methods, policy and tools. These insights can inform national priorities and help determine the most effective paths for action on national issues.

The workshop brought experts from the public and private sectors to underline the key priorities of GEO with regards to industry engagement and how to work in practice for the uptake of R&D projects. The panel focused on existing business cases against the SDGs. It was a great opportunity to make evidence on the actual capabilities of EO industry using relevant indicators that may be useful when contributing to the SDGs (measuring/reporting).

The outcomes of the discussion were that:

  • Some examples on how industry help on the SDG implementation role, monitoring, reporting, and the
    facilitation and shaping of reporting methods have been addressed.
  • SDGs are providing a common language to products and services that industry is already producing and
    EuroGEOSS could help to establish regular and consistent communication around the contribution to SDGs
    by all European stakeholders.
  • Industry bring a broad industry perspective across all commercial sectors to contribute towards meeting
    SDGs. Example of the full chain from research to operational have been covered by some sectors (case of
    fisheries)
  • Some companies in other market sectors (corporates) are already utilizing reporting indexes, ratings or
    standards (helping to monitor SDGs) for their reporting on market impact to their various stakeholders
  • It has been noted as important to look into evidence of the practical integration of the SDGs into existing
    business measuring indicators.
  • Overall, European EO industry can help achieve the SDGs by providing critical information on natural
    resources, government operations, public services, and population demographics; however, it is
    recommended to be very precise when companies refer to a target or to an indicator so we do not try to
    oversell the EO contribution to the Global Indicator Framework.
  • When referring to indicators, those EO products should make a direct contribution to the monitoring of
    the subject indicator.

Presentations are available at EARSC’s website

11 July 2017. EARSC published today a position paper entitled “Copernicus evolution: Fostering Growth in the EO Downstream Services Sector”.

Copernicus is a European programme designed to meet the needs of the public sector for space-derived, geospatial information in support of policy making. Public expenditure on the programme can also be used to support economic goals through commercial use of the data and information that Copernicus produces. The EO services downstream sector is enthusiastic about the opportunities that this can present and has been an active participant to the programme from the outset. Now, as the European Union evaluates its next steps, we consider that it is time to re-enforce the governance to include the voice of industry alongside other stakeholders. This should go hand-in-hand with an industrial strategy based on a service-led approach and coupled with a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda to help develop the sector.

Download the Position Paper on Copernicus evolution

We published our annual report for 2016 – covering 2016 and the beginning of 2017 – last June. Read about our activities over the last few months and understand what the Association is doing.

The EARSC Annual Report 2016/2017 describes how we fulfill our mission to foster the development of the European geo-information service industry. The report showcases the year’s accomplishments, detailing our key goals and activities, list of our members, and financial statement.

This article was first published in Copernicus observer on July 10th.

The European Commission and ESA are looking for operational use cases to highlight how EO-derived products based on data generated by Sentinel satellites, deliver value to society and the citizens. Do you know of any cases? Would you like to suggest forward-thinking ideas?

As an organisation within the Copernicus ecosystem, EARSC (European Association of Remote Sensing Companies) is leading this activity aimed at showcasing the high inherent value of Sentinel satellites’ data for the benefit of EU society.

Copernicus Observer readers may be familiar with the three cases already studied and published last year which show – in different applications domains – that Copernicus really makes a difference! Under EU and ESA funding, EARSC has been awarded a new contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) to analyse more use cases and is starting a second round of research.

Use cases need to be operational (so that a value chain using Sentinel data can be identified) and ideally should involve both public and private actors in the value chain. Furthermore, it is essential to be able to identify a key user (which could be a customer) who would be willing to cooperate in developing the case.

For all selected cases, a specific role is foreseen for the service provider whose service or product will be studied. It will be involved in (a) supporting the analysis of the EO context, (b) helping to establish a contact with the primary user of the EO services/products and © providing any additional information that will help to perform the value chain and benefit analysis. A small budget could be made available to cover any costs.

In return, contributors would benefit from:

  • expert evaluation of the economic benefits of their service or application, that will provide them with a very valuable marketing tool
  • visibility for their activities, thanks to the combined promotion that will be conducted by the European Commission, ESA and EARSC, which will consist of presentations in high profile events, printed material, press and social media promotion, and possibly video animations.

For proposing new use cases, please contact the EARSC secretariat.

Planetek Italia has been presented with the EARSC Company Achievement Award during the Association’s Annual cocktail, held on 4th July in Brussels. We want to thank Airbus and Specto Natura for their sponsorship.

Geoff Sawyer, EARSC Secretary General, Giovanni Sylos Labini- CEO Planetek Italia and Chetan Pradhan, EARSC Chairman

EARSC has thereby recognised Planetek Italia as the company that have made the most significant contribution to the development of the Earth Observation sector in Europe. The criteria used for the selection of the winning company were:

  • the successful development of EO services for a target market (sector or geographic)
  • a strong contribution to a defining European programme (eg. Copernicus, Inspire, ESA projects, etc)
  • exhibited good revenue and/or employment growth.

Since its foundation Planetek has worked with its partners to develop new services and increase its market share, both in new and existing markets. Notably, the company has developed Rheticus®, an automated cloud-based geo-information service platform. It was designed in house to deliver up-to-date, accurate maps, and historical graphical data via a user friendly dashboard. A significant achievement in 2017 is the exploitation of open data such as Sentinel-1, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 for use by customers and users from both private and public sectors. Planetek will pursue this in the years to come.

Nominations for the award were collected from EARSC members who then vote and the winner has been selected by an international, independent jury of EO sector representatives.

Planetek Italia is an Italian company specialised in Earth observation, Space solutions and geoservices. The company provides solutions to exploit the value of geospatial data through all phases of data life cycle from acquisition, storage, management up to analysis and sharing. Planetek Italia operates in many application areas ranging from environmental and land monitoring to open-government and smart cities, and including defense and security, as well as scientific missions and planetary exploration.

EARSC represents the Earth Observation geo-information services companies in Europe. Today EARSC has 96 members coming from more than 22 countries in Europe. Our members include both commercial operators of EO satellites, IT, downstream and value-adding companies. The sector plays a key role in providing value-added geo-spatial information to its customers in Europe and the world. In 2016, the revenue of the European EO services sector is estimated to be around one billion euros for approximatively 450 companies and giving work to nearly 7000 highly skilled employees.

Download the Press release

More information on the EARSC company of the year competition