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Editorial, Issue 5

GMES is on the headlines in these first months of 2006. Indeed several high level workshop have been taking place, in Toulouse, Paris, Budapest and most recently in Graz. We are providing you with access to their respective contents through our Web Site.
The Paris Workshop in particular, organised by EARSC was dedicated to the role of industry in GMES, a topic which deserves more attention than what was provided so far. Considering the fact that in a large part the success of GMES and GEOSS hinges on a proper and efficient role of industry, it was high time for industry to get together to evaluate the present situation, to make an overall assessment of GMES/GEOSS opportunities in terms of socio – economic and industrial terms as well as to study an action plan which would allow industry to play a role in insuring the success of these initiatives. The event was very well attended and generated ten main recommendations which were fed, on the one hand into the Budapest workshop on “GMES Socio-Economic Benefits”, and on the other hand into the Graz Symposium on “A Market for GMES in Europe and its regions”. In parallel with this gathering of momentum, some initiatives are being launched to find a better name for GMES, an essential step to allow a wide communication on the subject.
While GMES is on the rise, the same can be said of GEOSS, with international relations in Earth Observation getting stronger every day, in the scientific, operational as well as commercial domains (as shown with this month OrbView-3 data buy from the EU).
The global Earth Observation market evolution is nowadays also finding some of its flagship on the Internet with the new GOOGLE Earth and MSN Virtual Earth ventures. These could create new paradigms for the future of the Earth Observation industry. We will continue to keep you posted on those developments through our web site and our newsletter.
In the meantime and on behalf of our Board of Directors I would like to invite all our members to the Annual General Assembly which will take place in Brussels at the end of June with, as usual, a presentation by a Keynote speaker.
We also would like to invite you to participate in the EOVox Stakeholder Workshop which will take place on September 14th at ESRIN and which is dedicated to a wide consultation of the EO industry on industry representation issues. It will be a unique opportunity to interact with most of the EO downstream industry players”.
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Paul Kamoun
EARSC Chairman