9th International Steering Committee at the Living Planet Symposium

Living Planet Symposium, the meeting place of the EO

Attracting thousands of scientists and data users, ESA's Living Planet Symposia are amongst the biggest Earth observation conferences in the world. Held at the World Conference Center in Bonn, Germany, from 23 to 27 May 2022, this year's event focused on the role of Earth observation in building a sustainable future and a resilient society. Participants were able to discover a wealth of EO data application projects, which makes it all the more relevant to group climate projects under the SCO banner.

And the SCO had a strong presence, with a session dedicated to the 9th International Steering Committee, and the presentation of four SCO projects (ThermoCity, TropiSCO, Viet SCO and Stock Water) in different sessions. All of them attracted a lot of interest.

A steering committee in preparation for the Charter

As chair of the session, Mr Michal BRICHTA, Head of the Slovak Space Office - Industry Branch, opened the session by welcoming the SCO and its Charter as an important initiative to help the relevant agencies cooperate more effectively to combat climate change.

The SCO International Charter

After months of work by all members of the SCO, the Charter is ready. On 27 June 2022, on the occasion of the SCO's third anniversary, the first signatories of the Charter will be given the floor. The event is open to all, registration online.
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National SCO update

SCO in France
15 projects were awarded the SCO label in the spring of 2022, and the first calibration meetings are gradually being set up. The ThermoCity and TropiSCO projects, which are emblematic of the SCO approach and have already produced concrete results, were presented at the meeting.
The next call for projects of the SCO France will open on 1st September 2022.

SCO in Italy
The Italian Space Agency ASI launched its first call for ideas "Innovation 4 Downstream Preparation" (I4DP) on the theme of the effects of climate change and extreme events. Particular emphasis was placed on four areas: preservation of cultural heritage, land management and town planning, agricultural, forestry and fisheries systems, civil infrastructure and energy systems.
The overall objective is to promote the development of new solutions based on Earth observation and to integrate the data with non-space data and services as well as to accelerate the scientific development of the community, implement demonstrators and pilot projects.
New calls will be published every 6 months. Projects must last 24 months at the maximum as well as exhibiting Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) greater than 6.

SCO in India
The Indian space agency ISRO is currently in the process of forming a local SCO Committee in which different Indian agencies will be represented and be able to organise calls for projects. Requests have been sent for relevant Ministry participation within the SCO Programme. A total of 50 million Indian rupees (about €500,000) will be dedicated to these projects over the next three years.

Agenda at a glance

The SCO will participate in several important events during the second half of 2022:

• 7 June 2022: International Society for Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing (ISPRS) Congress in Nice
• 13 September 2022: UN/Austria Symposium 2022 "Space for climate action: experiences and best practices in mitigating and adapting to climate change and supporting sustainability on Earth" Read more 
• 20 September 2022: International Astronautical Congress (IAC), plenary session "New horizons for Earth observation: adapting our societies to the impacts of climate change”
• 3 and 4 October 2022: Conference on the use of space technology to study the impacts and the adaptation to climate change in Africa, organised in Rabat by the SCO Morocco