During the Thirteenth GEO Plenary Meeting, held in St Petersburg, Russian Federation, on 9-10 November 2016, representatives from the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) 103 Member governments and 106 Participating Organizations have assisted to launch of the new look of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) Portal. At the event, the GEO Principal and Secretary General of EuroGeoSurveys, Mr. Demicheli, declared “Over the years, GEO has demonstrated a constant evolution, especially in the provision of free data sharing, creating value-added products and services for the benefit of society; and today, with the involvement of the commercial sector, is making another step forward“. In this framework EuroGeoSurveys contributes through several projects such as Minerals4EU, EMODnet-Geology, EGDI and GEOCRADLE. Minerals4EU is the most comprehensive source of minerals statistics for Europe. It presents, for the first time, official national level statistical data for 40 European countries, including all European Union (EU) Member States, countries in accession and potential candidates, as well as European Free Trade Association (EFTA) members. All the data is accessible digitally only, through the European Minerals Knowledge Data Platform. The Minerals Yearbook published last year contains a unique and invaluable series of in-situ data, which will be freely served to GEOSS. The sustainability of Minerals4EU is now guaranteed by the set up of the Minerals4EU Foundation that can be a major pillar to the success of the GEOSS Energy and Mineral Resources SBA. The GEOSS Energy and Mineral Resources SBA is supported also by a new project, FORAM, which will establish a World Forum on Raw Materials, bringing together all major global players in the field and where EuroGeoSurveys is one of the partners involved. Concerning the marine environment, EuroGeoSurveys runs the geological component of the European Marine Observation Data Network...

Earth Observation tools applied to the raw materials sector in Africa can really make a difference New opportunities of collaborations for increasing the capacity building in Africa   The 2nd EuroGeoSurveys Networking workshop titled “Aimed at in-situ network operators and Geological Surveys – especially in Middle East and North Africa (MENA)”, held in Timimoun, Algeria, last 19th-22nd October 2016 was a great success. Over 200 participants representing the whole Algerian geoscientific community, mainly from universities and government institutions at the highest levels attended, included heads and managers of all the main Algerian state-enterprises. Also Tunisia was represented at Director General level. In Algeria several sectors are not fully open to the free market, and the state-enterprises manage most of the country’s resources, including raw materials. The GEO-CRADLE partners presented several aspects of the project via different presentations in plenary session, raising a big deal of attention. Mr. Luca Demicheli, Secretary General of EuroGeoSurveys, during its introduction highlighted “The potential for growth in Algeria is impressive, and in such wide territories rich in mineral resources, yet still largely unexplored, Earth Observation tools applied to the raw materials sector can really make a difference”. The role of Geological Surveys and the importance of the raw materials topics in the framework of GEOSS and COPERNICUS has been also pointed out. Mr. Marek Graniczny, representative of the Polish Geological Institute, and Chair of the International Cooperation and Development Task Force, described the specific role of EuroGeoSurveys and of raw materials for reaching the goals of GEO-CRADLE. The Deputy Chair of the EGS Earth Observation and GeoHazards Expert Group, Ms. Veronika Kopackova, entered into the technical details of the benefit of applying novel Earth Observation technologies to the raw materials sector. While the importance of capacity building and of...

The Copernicus Masters competition 2015 is now open for submissions – with new challenges, industry leading partners and an immense prize pool. Since 2011, the Copernicus Masters competition (www.copernicus-masters.com) has awarded innovative products, services or applications that are based on Earth observation data. Its purpose is to drive the development of market-oriented applications for utilising data generated through Europe’s flagship satellite programme – Copernicus. In this year’s edition, prizes will be awarded in topic-specific challenges sponsored by a number of world-class partners, including: the European Space Agency (ESA), the German Aerospace Center (DLR), T-Systems International GmbH, Satellite Applications Catapult Ltd., Greece’s National Cadastre and Mapping Agency (NCMA), CloudEO AG, and European Space Imaging GmbH (EUSI). In addition, the new University Challenge specifically addresses students and research assistants around the world. The prize pool includes cash awards, satellite data access and quota as well as support-packages and is worth EUR 300,000. SMEs, start-ups, entrepreneurs, students and everyone with a brilliant idea is welcome to join and submit their entries from 15 April to 13 July 2015 at...