The GEO post-2025 Strategy endorsed by Ministers at the GEO Ministerial Summit held in Cape Town in November 2023 has clarified the GEO post-2025 goals and objectives. To empower users in making sound environmental decisions, enable economic opportunities and promote good governance, the Strategy intends to follow up on its commitment to promote data and knowledge sharing and the co-development of services; as new purpose for the coming years GEO will have to make a step forward in the EO value chain (the “last mile”) by providing what has been defined “Earth Intelligence for All (users)”. The event will be a great opportunity for promoting an open debate between high-level Countries’ Representatives and other high-level Representatives from UN bodies, science, NGOs, Youth’s organizations on how Earth Intelligence should be laid down at local scale to implement cost-effective strategies to mitigate the effects of major global threats (climate change, biodiversity loss, natural disasters, urban areas). “Earth Intelligence for All (users)” includes the concept of making resources (data, tools, knowledge) and opportunities (financial) available to different communities (scaling down, scaling up) with varying needs and capacity: in one sentence, “Global Equity in benefitting from progress produced by the use of Earth observations data, technologies, tools and knowledge which represent the essence of Earth Intelligence for All)“. Additionally, a specific attention will be devoted to the involvement of youth in GEO Work Plan’s activities. Towards GEO 2025@Rome will be hosted in Rome and organized by Agenzia Spaziale Italiana in a way to maximise the involvement of stakeholders at national and international level and to increase the engagement of users and capacity building.

The Reaching Excellence in Hyperspectral Remote Sensing (EXPERT) twinning proposal aims at improving the excellence capacity and resources of Romanian Space Agency (ROSA) in hyperspectral (HS) remote sensing through knowledge and best practices transfer by Italian Space Agency (ASI) and German Aerospace Center (DLR), i.e. the internationally leading space agencies on satellite, airborne and ground-based HS technologies, including the recent PRISMA, EnMAP, and DESIS missions. The project represents an excellent opportunity to broaden ROSA’s activities, which in turn will increase the involvement of both national and European stakeholders in its research and innovation tasks. The concept of EXPERT is underpinned by three fundamental pillars (research, coordination and support measures, and research management and administration skills), in accordance with the objectives of the proposal. Specifically, the project is focused on capacity building in HS data analysis and ground measurement campaigns, achieved through specific courses, seminars, short staff exchanges, and field campaigns organized under the guidance of ASI and DLR. Considering the clear interdisciplinarity of EXPERT, focus will be given on ROSA’s main areas of expertise and applications, including agriculture, cultural heritage application, and mineralogy. These will also be the topics of joint research in the second part of the project, where ROSA will organize autonomously ground measurement field campaigns and use the data jointly with simultaneous acquisitions of EnMAP, PRISMA, and DESIS data provided by ASI and DLR. Furthermore, special attention will be given to strengthening the research management capacities and administrative skills of ROSA. Together with knowledge advancement, research infrastructure development, joint networking, and outreach activities by the consortium members, these will lead to improving the impact and visibility of ROSA within the EU.

This 3SST2015 project is aimed at supporting the emergence of a European SST service built on a network of existing SST assets, notably sensors (radar, laser and telescopes) owned by SST Consortium Member States. This will require the commitment of Consortium Member States owing relevant assets to cooperate and provide an anti-collision, fragmentation and re-entry service at European level in order to increase the autonomy of Europe concerning the operational objectives derived from the SST decision, which will be partially fulfilled by the operation of the initial European SST system. Given that this system is mainly based on national systems, at the initial stage many of the activities will be based at national level. At the same time, and in order to achieve the convergence within a joint action that will allow the minimum desirable level of performance, an appropriate degree of coordination between SST Consortium Member States is needed. The project is following a shared working approach between the key players within the field of SST in Europe. Following the guidelines given by the implementing decision of the European Commission (C(2014)6342 final of the 12.09.2014), the backbone of the planned activity is formed by a set of SST committees forming the decision platform of the SST Consortium, composed of the five designated national entities in cooperation mechanisms with the EU SatCen. Three Committees are foreseen for the governing structure of the SST Consortium: the Steering Committee as the decision platform, the Technical Committee as the professional motor and to the Security Committee dealing with bi- and multilateral aspects of security constraints and issues. The main activities are addressed in terms of: Performance assessment and architecture of SST, an SST Action Plan” and the Priority upgrading of existing sensors owned by the Member States member of the SST consortium.