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The Joint Research Centre: EU Science Hub
Earth intelligence

Coherent policies through Earth observation intelligence

Contributes to European Commission priorities

Portfolio overview

Earth observation is key to understanding the state of the Earth. Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation programme, produces one of the largest digital data repositories, allowing scientists to monitor air quality, pollution, and land and sea resources. This data also helps to predict and manage natural crises.  

This portfolio will explore how Earth observation can help the monitoring and assessment of land and water-based policies, and reduce the reporting burden by enabling more harmonised official statistics across many policy areas. It offers a mature toolbox impacting the full policy cycle, from anticipation to formulation, implementation and evaluation.   

 

Objectives

  • Generate Earth intelligence 

    Integrate Earth observation with socio-economic data into models for forecasting and scenario-analysis, leveraging AI to show the link between human behaviour and natural resources.  

  • Support policies and global conventions 

    Develop harmonised earth observation-based indicators to support policies, benefiting global UN conventions. 

  • Facilitate efficient reporting and certification of data 

    Use pertinent information on Earth observation to reduce the reporting and certification burden on Member States.  

  • Analyse the impact on competitiveness 

    Assess how policy needs and requirements drive commercial downstream Earth observation services to explore the impact of Earth observation on competitiveness.  

  • Provide support to Copernicus services

    Review gaps to improve the Copernicus value chain and support the development of Copernicus services, including by leveraging Destination Earth digital capabilities. 

Projects and activities

Scientific tools

Instrument for the thermal, mechanical and neutron-physical analysis of a cylindrical fuel rod in nuclear reactors.