European Commission

Group on Earth Observations – GEO Week 2022

Statement of the European Commission

In the past 12 months our European continent has faced unprecedent crisis being geopolitical, societal, economic or climate related. We have increased our efforts to strengthen our resilience, make our economies and societies greener, fairer and more digital. The European Green Deal is Europe’s roadmap to become the first climate-neutral continent, by 2050 and to implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. Despite this difficult context, and looking at our achievements, we can signal a few key initiatives that are directly relevant to the GEO community.

The Commission’s Data Governance Act, agreed with the European Parliament and Council in autumn 2021, increases trust and creates incentives for the voluntary sharing of data for the public good. It was complemented in February 2022 by a proposal for a Data Act, setting out new rules on who can use and access data generated in the EU across all economic sectors. The Commission is also establishing common European data spaces in strategic domains, involving private and public actors. A human-centred digital transition is the foundation on which the four pillars of Europe’s Digital Decade stand: empowering citizens with digital skills; digitalising businesses; digitalizing public services; and strengthening digital infrastructure.

The EU’s space programme already provides prized data and services for a wide array of daily applications, ranging from environmental monitoring, support to emergencies, support commercial transportation and personal navigation, precision agriculture, and solutions to climate change. We need to highlight the central role of Copernicus for climate action as a global leader in the provision of Earth Observation data and information to users across the world under a full, free, and open data access policy.

Both the green and the digital transitions in Europe depend on world-class research and innovation. The Commission launched five EU research and innovation missions in September 2021, to come up with concrete solutions to some of our greatest challenges. Opportunities for research funding on environmental observations were published under our Horizon Europe Work Programme and first grant agreements signed this autumn that will contribute to reinforce our contribution to the GEO Work Programme. Additional opportunities should be published together with the next Horizon Work Programme 2023-2024 before the end of the year.

In autumn 2021, President von der Leyen announced the Global Gateway, Europe’s offer to a world that needs massive investment: investment in clean energy, in roads and bridges that are flood-proof and in buildings that can withstand extreme heatwaves; investment to prepare health systems for the pandemics of the future and to adapt farming to drier conditions; investment to equip our workers with skills that match the jobs of tomorrow; or investment in digital infrastructure, because the fuel of the new economy is data. The EU–African Union Summit in February 2022 saw the launch of the Global Gateway Investment Package for Africa.

As European Commission GEO co-chair, we could rely on our long-standing cooperation with the Joint Research Centre, to look at issues such as the design of virtual ecosystem benefitting from the investments made within the EU Strategy for Data. The Strategy envisions the creation of sector-specific Data Spaces comprising digital infrastructures and governance methods that enable the flow of data between countries and economic sectors. In particular, the Green Deal is one of the strategic domains of public interest identified in the EU Data Strategy for which a common European Data Space will be created. JRC will look at how to leverage modern data-sharing and exploitation approaches, including those developed within the data spaces and beyond. Its design will reflect emerging trends, technologies and development practices in the Earth Observation domain and beyond.

Our colleagues from the European Environment Agency are running a three-year project focused on improving the sharing and use of in situ Earth observation data in support of environment and climate policies. An important focus of this project lies on supporting the activities carried out by the GEO Data Working Group (DWG), in particular on in-situ data. Under the co-leadership of EEA, the In Situ Subgroup of the DWG has engaged with GEO Work Programme activities, identifying common barriers to in-situ data sharing and use and proposing ways to address these barriers.

From our projects’ portfolio, e-shape has contributed to accelerate a breakthrough in the European Observation sector and serving GEO through further shaping the EuroGEO initiative. e-shape has developed and promotes European EO capabilities with and for the users through a co-design approach with as a key element to bring new partners on-board. Amongst other key results such as the development of a Data Management Self-Assessment Tool allowing to assess GEO principles and FAIR principles for all GEO activities, the co-design methodology developed within e-shape will support the preparation of the post-2025 GEO Work programme through the set-up and evaluation of an incubator/integration approach inspired from the project.

We should not forget our other Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects. Integrating citizen observations in pan-European infrastructures, as does Cos4Cloud that connects Citizen Observatories with the European Open Science Cloud -EOSC-, can facilitate and increase the use of Citizen Science in GEO by supporting global coordination and collaboration within and beyond GEO.

As part of the GEOGLoWS initiative, TWIGA developed services for Africa based on in situ data for irrigation, crop management, weather information for small farmers, agricultural index insurance, flood early warning, dam reservoir management, cross-border water management, livestock heat stress, and solar energy, starting in Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique and South Africa. AfriCultures as well a member of the GEOGLoWS initiative developed a digital platform on remote sensing services for food security in Africa, with special attention for climate, crops, drought, land, livestock, water and weather. Both projects have finished but are still working on maintaining and developing further partnerships with the GEO community.

Looking back to our efforts to promote GEO in new fields, we might signal our efforts towards the International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) by establishing a Working Group acting at the interface between ISPRS Technical Commissions on Spatial Information Science, Remote Sensing and Education and Outreach. The WG, led by representatives of the European Commission and the European Space Agency, will establish strategic partnerships with key organisations in the Earth Observation domain, including GEO and its European counterpart EuroGEO in particular.