8th SCO France meeting

Highlights of the 2022 review

Crucially, the year 2022 saw the materialization of financial partnerships with three new organizations: the ecological transition agency ADEME, the French Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs, and the French Office for Biodiversity OFB.

The Quarterly Meetings are well attended and appreciated. At a rate of three projects presented per quarterly, almost all the projects from the 2020 and 2021 editions have been presented. The website's statistics show that projects are strongly supported, with more than a third of the information published in 2022 to highlight the progress of each project. Still on the communication side, the SCO opened a LinkedIn account at the end of August 2022, which is showing great dynamism with almost 750 subscribers.

The call for projects for the 2023 edition, open to Europe, collected 24 proposals, which were screened by the 27 reviewers of the Labelling Committee. In February, the latter will conduct interviews with a number of candidates whose applications require clarification and/or adjustment, with the results to be announced in March 2023.

Projects and their valorization

Out of 51 projects labelled since 2020, eight of them are completed in their SCO phase. Statistically, the projects last on average 17 months, which corresponds to the initial ambitions of 12 to 24 months of development.

All the participants spontaneously converged on the crucial question of the valorization of projects: how to give visibility and improve the impact of completed projects? The exchanges were nourished with several remarks and proposals, a precise study is planned in 2023.

In preparation for the visit to Predict Services in the afternoon, participants were able to see the progress of the Gade Lapli project.

Focus on Cerema & AFD

Cerema took advantage of this meeting to announce that, in application of the French 3DS law (Differentiation, Decentralization, Deconcentration and Simplification) of 21 February 2022, it is becoming the first public establishment with shared management by State and local authorities. As a direct consequence, local authorities who so wish will be able to join Cerema's board of directors and thus influence the establishment's orientations, as well as having a privileged relationship with its network of experts. For Cerema, this major change will make it possible to provide even closer support to territories in their transition to, for example, combating urban heat islands, supporting soil sealing strategies, improving integrated coastline management, etc.

For its part, the AFD reports the implementation of its wishes to become more involved in the SCO and its projects with, as a first step, the hiring of a person dedicated to this reinforcement for six months.

First half-year 2023 at a glance

SCO France

• 28 March: second congress of the SCO France at the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industrial and Digital Sovereignty;
• Quarterlies Meetings: 23 March (risk prevention), 29 June (agriculture) and September (hydrology)

SCO International

• 1st March: One Forest Summit in Gabon
• 23-25 May: GLOC 2023 in Oslo (Norway).  This first edition of GLOC will be the occasion to hold the 11th International Steering Committee.

Some SCO members were able to visit the House of Remote Sensing (Maison de la Télédétection) in Montpellier. Also known as the "Geo-Data sciences and society open innovation centre”, this structure is entirely devoted to research via Earth Observation. Around two large research labs (UMR Tetis and UMR Espace Dev), it hosts public structures and associations, companies that have signed research agreements, students, and two components of the Data Terra infrastructure. © SCO

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The CIO Interagency Committee brings together the 24 member institutions of the SCO in France. It meets twice a year for a half-yearly review and a perspective on the next six months.