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Is GMES an opportunity for the service industry?

The workshop organised by EARSC, in collaboration with the EC-GMES Bureau and ESA and held on March 19 in Brussels, was successful in that it lived up to the main objective identifying the positioning of the different players and their respective functions and raising the question to stakeholders “Is GMES an opportunity for the service industry?”

One of the workshop’s main strengths, warmly acknowledged by speakers and attendees alike, proved to be its relevance to the representatives from the EO industry community and institutions who were all there to discuss the future opportunities for the Service Industry whether through the Core or the Downstream services.

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GMES has been hailed since 1998 and the Baveno Declaration as one of the flagships of Europe not only as a giant step forward in the monitoring of the environment but also as a key political framework and a possible boost to Europe in terms of scientific and technology advances as well as in terms of employment along the lines of the Lisbon Agenda.
Ten years later this initiative is becoming concrete with the study of the overall GMES architecture, the analysis of needs in terms of information access, the set up of the sentinels space segment, the finalisation of the INSPIRE directive and the initiation of the Fast Track Services.
The so-called upstream GMES service sector is engaged in a serious preparation for producing the core service elements and for implementing operational services, without having a clear view of their role in the delivery phase. The situation is also confused concerning the downstream service sector. In particular the road ahead for SMEs is not clear and the dialogue with the GMES decision makers is somewhat limited.
The question legitimately raised by Industry is thus: Is GMES an opportunity for the service industry?
The EARSC Workshop organised around these topics with participations from small and large industries as well as from European and national institutions and users will be an occasion to shed light on these issues and to draw with all parties involved a possible roadmap to make GMES an opportunity for the service industry. Among others, the workshop will face issues related to applications industry access to information about GMES data and service availability and schedule, and ongoing and future support to application development and deployment by the public sector and large corporations. The service industry sector is indeed a key for the success of the GMES Programme as a whole not only inside Europe itself but also to allow the benefits of the European GMES to be shared worldwide.

PROGRAMME
MORNING
08h15 – 09h15: Registration
09h15 – 09h30: Welcome Paul KAMOUN, Chairman EARSC
High level introduction on GMES: Potential impact on the Commission’s growth and jobs strategy. Heinz ZOUREK, Director General EU-DG-ENT

|09h30 – 09h50: Position speech from EU: Overall presentation of GMES: state-of-play of Commission’s actions. Valère MOUTARLIER, EU-GMES BUREAU

09h50 – 10h10: Opportunities, potential services in GMES at large. Han WENSINK, Vice-Chairman EARSC
10h10-10h30: Economic Models and Expected Socio-Economic Benefits. Michael OBERSTEINER, INT. INSTITUT APPLIED SYSTEMS ANALYSIS, IIASA
10h30 – 10h50: Coffee Break
10h50-11h10 Lessons from the GSE for future GMES Services by Stephen COULSON, ESA
11h10 – 12h15: Core Services (CS): Opportunities and Threats
-Land – GEOLAND: Alexander KAPTEIN, INFOTERRA + Rob BECK, NEO
-Marine – MERSEA: Fabienne JACQ, CLS + Charlotte O´KELLY, TECHWORKS
-Emergency – PREVIEW: Gil DENIS, INFOTERRA + Nuno ALMEIDA, CRITICAL SOFTWARE
-Atmosphere – GEMS: Nöel PARMENTIER, BELGIUM INSTITUTE SPACE AERONOMIE + Hein ZELLE, ARGOSS
-Security – LIMES: Marco MANCA, TELESPAZIO + Emilio SIMEONE, FLYBY
12h15- 13h15 ROUND TABLE AND DISCUSSION: Are the GMES Core Services opening opportunities for the service industry? (1st PART)
Moderator: Colin HICKS, EURISY
Rapporteur: Stigbjorn OLOVSSON, EARSC Director
Introduction Remarks: Alain PODAIRE, GMES BUREAU
PARTICIPANTS: Phil CURTIS (VEGA), Marcello MARANESI (TELESPAZIO), Pat NORRIS (LOGICA), Miguel BELLÓ (DEIMOS), Rainer HORN (SpaceTec Capital Partners AG)
13h15 – 14h15: Buffet Lunch
AFTERNOON
14h15 – 14h40 Cross-cutting issues
-Data access: Erik WILLÈN, METRIA
-Security of information, data management. Role of the different actors: Fulvio SANSONE, ORACLE
14h40 – 15h00 Downstream Services: Opportunities and Treats: Christian HOFFMANN, GEOVILLE
15h00-15h45 Expectations in Downstream Services from federation of Users
-Land: GMES FTS/CLC2006 a blueprint for fair procurement, Chris STEENMANS, EUROPEAN ENVIRONMENTAL AGENCY
-Marine: Effective linking of the Marine Core Services to end-user applications, Ralph RAYNER, ASSOCIATION MARINE SCIENTIFIC INDUSTRIES
-Emergency: Findings on Eurisy WK on Local and Regional Risk Management, Nicolas DOSSELAERE, EUROSENSE and MEDAD, best practice case for downstream services on emergency by Bernard ALLENBACH , SERTIT
15h45-16h45 ROUND TABLE AND DISCUSSION: Are the GMES downstream services opportunities for the service industry? (2nd PART)
Moderator: Colin HICKS, EURISY
Rapporteur: Marcello RICOTTILLI, EARSC Director
Introduction Remarks: Alain PODAIRE, GMES BUREAU
PARTICIPANTS: Ren CAPES (NPA), Paul DE FRAIPONT (SERTIT), Jaume FONS-ESTEVE (GNU), Serge GALANT (TECHNOFI), Rupert HAYDN (GAF), John STYLES (ASSIMILA), Steve COULSON (ESA)
16h45 –17h00 Wrap-Up and Recommendations for the way ahead

FINAL LIST OF PARTICIPANTS MARCH 19TH 2008
FINAL PROGRAMME MARCH 19TH 2008
RECOMMENDATIONS MARCH 19TH 2008

Stakeholder´s active involvement was helpful to discuss, with small and large industries as well as European and national institutions and users, the perspectives within GMES for the downstream services sector.