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We are delighted to announce that NQA ltd, one of the largest and most respected certification bodies in Europe and with a global network, is now partnered with EARSC in the implementation of the EARSC Certification Scheme.

The EARSC EO Industry Certification Scheme looks at the management system elements that are specific to the challenges of our Industry and the scheme documents have been updated to reflect the changing requirements of ISO9001, the de-facto international norm for management systems across the globe.

The development of industry specific standards and specifications has been shown in the past as a key step in the development of a mature industry and EARSC strongly recommend its members to engage with the certification scheme.

scheme documents:

  • EARSC Certification Scheme Description Iss 1.1.pdf
  • EARSC Certification Self Assessment Checklist Iss 2.pdf
  • EARSC Management System Requirements Iss 2.pdf
  • EARSC Product Specification DRD guideline Iss 1.1.pdf

more information

Over the last weeks, EARSC has been working on an update of the EOPages brokerage site. A key improvement is the introduction of a core function which enables partnering, allowing to look for industrial partners either for collaborative research projects or for competitive tenders, this can be accessed via the eo-market tool

The objective of EOpages is to help potential customers explore the available value-added geo-information services of interest to them in a new and user-friendly way.

EOpages API provide the companies with a single location where they can maintain their contact details and capabilities but which can be extracted by other sites to be used in conjunction with their specific applications.

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Joining EARSC is a very efficient way of knowing the status of our industry, getting answers, and being active at defending the development of our business.

EARSC represents the European providers of geo-information services creating a network between industry, decision-makers and users. We consider that the market is at a crucial stage of development as Earth observation becomes more frequently used by society and adds positive value to our daily lives. Nevertheless, there are many issues, opportunities and threats facing industrial actors and, through a small secretariat, EARSC informs and involves its members though its website and newsletters, through the provision of web-tools, as well as organizing events.

Members tell us that they appreciate the opportunity to network with other similar companies and that this helps them develop new business opportunities as well as exchanging on best practices. They also like the regular flow of information as well as the knowledge that EARSC is able to influence EU and ESA policy when it is important for the sector

Industry stakeholders together could transform activities into meaningful action on behalf of our sector. Your membership is more important to us than anything else. Our strength is in our unity and together we can bring about positive change for the EO service community.

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EARSC, in partnership with ESA, is updating the industry survey that we conducted every over year to understand the state and health of the EO services industry in Europe. The results of the previous survey can be found at http://earsc.org/news/earsc-eo-industry-survey. Our goal is to analyse the state of the EO Services Industry and to understand the issues that are important for its future.

A detailed understanding of the Earth Observation sector and the trends is essential to help stakeholders to plan their activities and to assess the effectiveness of their actions. Industry has a strong interest to ensure that accurate and up-to-date information is available. This will help inform stakeholders on the priorities for future EO value adding activities and pave the way for other stakeholder actions. It will provide critical data to help set budgets for EO research and development. It will enable EARSC to represent the industry in the most effective way.

Active participation by the EO service industry is critical to ensure that the survey can meet the objectives of furnishing a sufficiently comprehensive and accurate picture of the current industry status and health. These information will help also to identify priority issues, dominant opportunities, threats and other concerns facing the industry; therefore to have a clear picture about our sector!

Thank you very much for your active participation. Contact secretariat_at_earsc.org

(Brussels, 23 November 2016)

The European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC) and Japan Space Systems (J-spacesystems), both non-profit organisations, signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on 23 November 2016 to develop synergies and strengthen cooperation in business, research and technology between Europe and Japan in the utilisation of Earth-observation (EO) technology. The EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation will act as an intermediary support organisation to support activities between the two parties as part of its objective to facilitate EU-Japan industrial cooperation under its Space.Japan project.


Signature of the Memorandum of Understanding by Chetan Pradhan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of EARSC and Yoshiharu Kunogi, J-spacesystems President of the Board of Executives

The memorandum was signed on behalf of EARSC by the Chairman of the Board of Directors, Chetan Pradhan, and J-spacesystems President of the Board of Executives, Yoshiharu Kunogi with the presence of Ms. Yoko Kadoya representing the EU-Japan Centre for Industrial Cooperation. The brief signing ceremony took place in Brussels, Belgium at an opportune time – the day after the European Commission held the EU Copernicus User Forum Industry Workshop “Internationalisation of European Earth Observation Companies”.

The signing ceremony was attended by Mr. Takashi Omote, Minister of the Japanese Mission of Japan to the European Union in Brussels, and Mr. Pierre Delsaux, Deputy Director-General of DG-Growth, Internal Market, Industry, Entrepreneurship and SMEs, European Commission.
The memorandum serves to provide a framework for understanding and cooperation between the Parties to achieve their common goals regarding development of partnerships and joint events. The Parties also aim to benefit from the sharing of best practices and exchange of experiences, information and technologies relating to EO which are not available in their home locations. The cooperation will be coordinated by EARSC’s Secretary General, Mr. Geoff Sawyer, and JSS’ Director General, Mr. Hisanobu Takayama with additional support from the EU-Japan Centre.

Areas of Cooperation

  • Exchange of information a foster cooperation in the utilisation of EO technologies and applications between Europe and Japan.
  • Organisation of joint meetings/events to build up cooperation between the EU and Japan in relation to EO technologies and applications.
  • Cross-promotion of other mutual opportunities of interest for the both parties.

This above list is not exhaustive and both parties do not exclude cooperation on other issues of mutual interest.

as the first next step in the cooperation between the EU and Japan, JSS has invited EARSC and European EO companies interested to participate to a workshop on Satellite Data Platforms and Applications in Tokyo on 15 February.

European Association of Remote Sensing Association (EARSC)

EARSC is a non-profit organisation aimed to promote the use of Earth-observation (EO) and European companies which offer EO-related products and services. Formed in 1989, the organisation has over 80 member companies from throughout Europe with a secretariat office in Brussels. EARSC is actively involved in coordinating and strengthening the EO chain and promoting the European geo-information industry, and also providing a unified voice on wider European and global issues of importance to the industrial sector.

Japan Space Systems (J-spacesystems)

JSS is a non-profit organisation formed in 2012 after the merger of three public R&D organizations pertaining to space technology and applications – Institute for Unmanned Space Experiment Free Flyer (USEF), Japan Resources Observation System and Space Utilization Organization (JAROS) and Earth Remote Sensing Data Analysis Center (ERSDAC). JSS conducts space projects involving satellite systems, launch systems, ground facilities for satellite operations, satellite remote sensing technologies and space environment utilization. Recently, the organisation has launched Space Business Court, an online information and business support platform to promote new business development in commercial space, focusing on Earth-observation downstream applications.

Note to Editors:
For more information, please contact Mr. Geoff Sawyer, Secretary General EARSC (geoff.sawyer@earsc.org) or Mr. Hisanobu Takayama, Director General JSS (Takayama-Hisanobu@jspacesystems.or.jp).


From left to right: Pierre Delsaux, Deputy DG DG-GROW, Chetan Pradhan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of EARSC, Yoshiharu Kunogi, J-spacesystems President of the Board of Executives, and Takashi Omote, Minister of the Japanese Mission of Japan to the European Union in Brussels


Group Picture

EOpages Africa is a visualization tool developed by EARSC, giving location, company name and contact details of African private sectors companies working in the field of Earth Observation and Geospatial information sciences.

By mapping their areas of interest it facilitates the partner search for companies.
Data has been extracted from the AARSE and EARSC inventory published in July 2016.

Since its inception some 20 years ago, AARSE Conferences were geared to scientific exchange, providing a platform for scientists to present and discuss their work and generally promoting Earth Observation by means of remote sensing tools

It was a novelty at the AARSE 2016 International Conference in Kampala/ Uganda that one Plenary Session (Wed. 26 Oct 2016) was entirely devoted to the commercial sector. This was in recognition that the private sector in Earth Observation and Geospatial fields in Africa has come of age, as an important actor and a crucial stakeholder for furthering evidence-based decision making by African governmental authorities and societal entities – as elsewhere in the world.

Plenary Session 3 at AARSE 2016, 26 October (moderated by Elisabeth Zeil-Fahlbusch, AARSE EC Communication Officer) entailed two presentations, namely by Tsehaie Woldai (founder and Immediate Past President of AARSE) accounting the findings derived from a survey into the African private sector industry, conducted between February – May; and by Geoff Sawyer (Secretary General of the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies, EARSC) relating the development of the industry in Europe, and more specifically the experience of EARSC in getting companies associated in a trade body in order to better position the commercial sector as a major player. The presentation is accessible online

A major part of the session was devoted to a panel discussion with statements given by:
• Tidiane Ouattara (AUC-HRST, in charge of the GMES & Africa Program)
• Christophe Roeland (representing EC – DG Grow 1.3 – Space Data for Societal Challenges and Growth) Jane Bemingisha (Director ESSIPS, Uganda)
• David Kirugara (Director ENSAFO Group, Kenya)
• Sias Mostert (Chairperson Aerospace Group, SCS, South Africa)
• Stefan Zaradeth (GAF AG, Germany)
• Christian Hoffman (Geoville, Austria)
• Julio López (Deimos Imaging, Spain).

Panelists were asked to give their perspectives on
• strategic issues arising from the survey
• suggestions made for supporting the private sector, as well as
• stronger exchange and collaboration between African and European companies.

This session was followed up by a Business to Business session in the afternoon to promote further discussions, networking and collaboration opportunities.

Source AARSE

After 2 years of intense work, the H2020 CSA ConnectinGEO is finalizing to provide the main outcomes of the project. ConnectinGEO wants to continue some of these activities after the end of the project.

ConnectinGEO (Coordinating an Observation Network of Networks EnCompassing satellite and IN-situ to fill the Gaps in European Observations, H2020 Project Nr: 641538) started on 2015 with the aim to provide to link existing Earth Observation networks with science, private sector and with GEOSS and Copernicus stakeholders. Following this objective, other major achievements have been reached, mainly, the enablement of the European Network of Earth Observation Networks (ENEON), and the provision of a gap analysis among existing EO networks prioritizing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Essential Variables (EV).

The gap analysis has been performed by applying the ConnectinGEO Gap Analysis Methodology, structured in five threads:
• Top-down 1 (TDT1). Derivation of sustainability indicators needed to monitor progress towards GEOSS Strategic Targets and SDGs and infer the EV.
• Top-down 2 (TDT2). Incorporation of international programs such as the Future Earth, the Belmont Forum, and the Research Data Alliance.
• Bottom-up 1 (BUT1). Direct dialog with members of ENEON.
• Bottom-up 2 (BUT2). Through an observation inventory populated from the GEOSS GEODAB and the SEE IN (Socio-Economic and Environmental Information Needs) Knowledge Base.
• Bottom-up 3 (BUT3). SMEs participation in pilots to transfer experiences and generate new products based on open access GEOSS EO data.

The preliminary results of the gap analysis carried out in the context of the project have been collected in the ConnectinGEO Gaps Table (CGT), which is an on-line table in the ConnectinGEO wiki available at this page.

Main conclusions on this analysis are:
• The distribution of the gaps over themes is dominated the Climate theme with 52% of the gaps associated with this theme followed by the Ocean theme with 30% of the gaps (Fig. 30). This uneven distribution is mainly due to the climate and ocean communities being the most active one in contributions to the CGT.
• Most of the gaps currently in the CGT resulted from TDT2 i.e., the review of published literature from international programs such as Future Earth, Belmont Forum, the Research Data Alliance and community assessments of socio-economic benefits of Earth observations.
• BUT1 provided 20% of the gaps. These gaps come from the consultation process in the current EO networks, consisting of collaboration platforms, surveys and discussions at workshops and the involvement of citizen science.
• BUT3, i.e., gaps coming from the realization of a series of real industry-driven challenges to assess the problems and gaps emerging during the creation of business opportunities (see Section 4.5) contributed 4% of the currently published gaps.
• Concerning the gap type, most gaps are found with respect to required temporal resolution followed by temporal extent and geographical coverage.
• The distribution of the gaps over groups of EVs is heavily biased towards the Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) with 91% of all gaps being associated with this group of EVs. However, many of the ECVs are also Essential Ocean Variables (EOVs) and/or Essential Biodiversity Variables (EBVs).

Agriculture Essential Variable (AgV), Essential Biodiversity Variable (EBV), Essential Climate Variable (ECV), Essential Ocean Variable (EOV), Essential Renewable Energy Variable (EREV), Health Essential Variable (HeV), Water Essential Variable (WaV)

Additionally, ConnectinGEO also analysed the level of maturity of the concept of EV in all GEOSS SBA Coming from a Workshop in Bari, in June 2015, and reported in the public D2.3 Proposal of EVs for selected themes In particular, 147 EVs were reviewed and analysed, leading to the following main conclusions:

  • The community that has defined the highest number of EVs is currently the Climate one, led by the Global Climate Observing System (GCOS).
  • Other communities already working on a mature set of EVs are Weather (led by WMO/GAW) and Ocean, led by the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS).
  • EV discussion and related work is growing fast in Biodiversity and Water. Energy community follows. Agriculture, Disasters, Ecosystems, Health, and Urban Development, are still in the initial stage.
  • Most of the ECVs can be relevant and useful to the other GEO SBAs or themes, and so many SBA could rely on a number of EVs already available in other areas.

Moreover, analysing the SDG, only 30 indicators from 240 can be extracted with the combination of socio-economic data and Earth observation (in-situ, airborne or remote sensing), and only 9 by Earth observation information alone. For these 9, a link with EVs was proposed (results available in the deliverable D2.3 Proposal of EVs for selected themes).

ENEON , particularly focused on the in-situ segment, is created to increase the connection between the existing European EO networks and the relevant communities engaged in the assessments, forecasting, and projecting of future developments: policy makers, EC, GEO/GEOSS, Copernicus, etc.

ENEON is also a platform to promote emerging European networks and sensor development projects to provide future provisions, which may not yet be part of GEOSS or Copernicus Services. By this, ENEON ensures that all networks are contributing valuable resources to GEOSS and in the contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and the Essential Variables (EV).

Through ENEON, a lively, dynamic graph on existing European EO networks has been created based on JSON-LD & JavaScript. EOnetworks. The graph also incorporates the possibility of provide feedback.

ENEON wants to play a major role in developing, validating, populating, and using the Socio-Economic and Environmental Information Needs Knowledge Base (SEE-IN KB) for virtual collaboration between providers, scientific and societal users, and, in particular, decision and policy makers. For this reason, an ENEON Virtual Marketplace/Commons is created to support the sharing and reuse of digital objects in a web space.

ENEON is taking an active role in pushing in-situ observations in GEOSS through the GD-06 Foundational Task on “GEOSS non-space based Earth Observation Resources”.

Other activities have been done during the project. On one hand, interoperability experiments on providing access to in-situ measurements through a WebGIS Client based on the 52N SWE (Sensor Web Enablement) solution following OGC SOS (Sensor Observation Service) standard and GEOSS recommendation on interoperability.

On the other hand, a stimulation of the industry sector to the use of GEOSS data was promoted by means of the EO product award competition within ConnectinGEO together with EARSC.

More information on these activities at ConnectinGEO and ENEON

The event, organised by EARSC with the support of ESA, will take place on 25 January 2017 from 10:30 to 16:30, at the Royal Library of Belgium.

The main objective of the meeting is to hold a discussion on the steps being taken to help develop the market for EO services. ESA will present their latest thoughts after the recent ESA Ministerial on the EO Exploitation platforms and Market Development activities and EARSC will present the first results of the study related to the European Marketplace for EO Services. Further speakers should be invited. We hope for a stimulating discussion on what industry expects from these activities.

Registrations are open at the following link http://bit.ly/earsc25jan
More info

EARSC participated in the GEO XIII plenary in St Petersburg.

Our Secretary General, Geoff Sawyer contributed to different events notably a panel on the Commercial sector engagement with GEO.

It was the first time that the private sector had been invited to speak in front of the GEO delegates and represents a good step forward in the move to promote engagement. A dialogue is essential and this need was recognised as the main conclusion of the panel. As a global organisation this is not so easy to organise but as a representative body and a Participating Organisation to GEO, EARSC can play a strong role.

Read also EARSC´s blog on the subject.
All the presentations can be downloaded from the GEO portal