Call: European data hub of the GEOSS information system

• Health, demographic change and wellbeing;
• Food security, sustainable agriculture and forestry, marine and maritime and inland water research, and the Bioeconomy;
• Secure, clean and efficient energy;
• Smart, green and integrated transport;
• Climate action, environment, resource efficiency and raw materials;
• Europe in a changing world - inclusive, innovative and reflective societies;
• Secure societies - protecting freedom and security of Europe and its citizens.

This Subprogramme aims to achieve a resource- and water-efficient economoy and society that is also resilient to climate change. Furthermore, it seeks to promote the protection and sustainable management of natural resources and ecosystems. Lastly, the Programme also supports the sustainable supply and use of raw materials, in order to meet the needs of a growing global population within the sustainable limits of the planet's natural resources and eco-systems.

As part of its 2015 strategic targets GEO has agreed to achieve sustained operation, continuity and interoperability of the GEOSS information system that facilitates access to, and use of Earth observation resources made available by the global GEO community. However the evolution of the current GEOSS information system indicates that in parallel to this overarching goal there is a need also to strengthen the access to Earth Observation at regional level so that it becomes easier to harvest, consolidate and exploit those data at global level. The specific challenge under this topic is therefore to overcome the fragmentation of the European landscape of existing public and private Earth observation data infrastructures and to maximise their combined exploitation in the light of the evolving demand and supply of Earth observations in Europe. In order to meet this challenge a European data hub of the GEOSS information system should be developed taking into account the global trend towards more open data policies, the availability of new big data technologies and the requirements for the development of the European digital economy. The main function for such a hub would consist in harvesting available resources from relevant GEOSS data infrastructures in Europe and in particular from the distributed Copernicus data infrastructures. Developing such a hub would allow maximising and leveraging on past Community investments to support the GEOSS Common Infrastructure, in particular the broker technology, developed in the framework of several FP7 research projects. This would also help retain ownership in the evolution of this IT technology, which is at the cornerstone of the GEOSS.

At least three legal entities. Each of the three must be established in a different EU Member State or Horizon 2020 associated country. All three legal entities must be independent of each other. 

The Commission considers that proposals requesting a contribution from the EU of between 9 million € and 10 million € would allow this specific challenge to be addressed appropriately. Nonetheless, this does not preclude submission and selection of proposals requesting other amounts.