Eurisy, EO4GEO associated partner supporting the development of GI and EO skills
Interview by Annalisa Donati, Coordinator of activities at EURISY
Eurisy is a non-profit association founded back in 1989 by Hubert Curien, then French Minister of Education.
Eurisy mission is to bridge space and society. To fulfill its scope, Eurisy stimulates and supports dialogue and collaboration between public institutions, SMEs, industry, and academia from space and non-space sectors. The goal is to build solid relations with communities new to space encouraging early adopters to share experiences creating a common ground for professionals from diversified backgrounds. Aiming at maximising the impact of space-derived innovation and the resulting benefits for society, as well as economy and environment, Eurisy:
- raises public awareness on the benefits of satellite applications, in particular deriving from technology innovation in satellite navigation, communication, and Earth Observation;
- surveys users’ needs in their working context and provide our Members, partners, and decision-makers at local, national, and European level with bottom-up feedback;
- supports the take-up of satellite applications and facilitating dialogue between professional end-user communities and the space community.
Eurisy Members currently include most space agencies or government offices in charge of space affairs in Europe and international organisations dealing with space matters. Its unique membership structure, composed of institutional organisations collectively acting as a non-governmental and non-profit entity, guarantees Eurisy independence and neutrality- therefore- the valuable legitimacy needed when facilitating cooperation across diverse professional sectors.
How is Eurisy currently supporting the development of GI and EO skills?
Eurisy has always played an active role in supporting major international as well as national initiatives aiming at fostering the development of GI and EO skills; which are and will be more and more a key asset for the labour market of the near future.
Among the most recent activities in this domain is worth mentioning the Erasmus+ co-funded project GIS4Schools. The project launched last September is a strategic partnership in the field of School Education aimed at introducing new methodologies based on the use of GIS technologies applied to the impact of climate change on the environment while improving STEAM’s learning by pupils.
The project will combine Inquiry Based Science Education (IBSE) and Problem Based Learning (PBL) approaches to an interdisciplinary contextualization of the science’s topic; it will enhance pupils’ level of knowledge and capabilities by involving them in the co-creation of new methodologies and replicable digital tools using and exploiting Earth Observation (EO) and other data to develop GIS products in order to address the impact of climate change on the local community.
In this frame, GIS represents an enabling tool to engage pupils in analysis related to their local environment and community, contributing to increasing the interest of secondary schools’ pupils in STEAM disciplines.
GIS4Schools represents an innovative project because it introduces in secondary schools the teaching of GIS technology which is not yet, or rarely adopted, and applies it to the thematic area of “Climate Change” which is receiving increasing attention by young generations. GIS4Schools will allow students to get a new set of skills in analysis and managing GIS data, open data statistics, and related technologies for the analysis of environmental, economic, and social phenomena allowing students to work with EO data from Copernicus. In addition, GIS also provides high school students with a wealth of knowledge on space, satellites, and relevant exploitation platforms, giving them the basics tools to shape their future careers. The project targets 4 European schools, respectively located in Italy, Portugal, Romania, and Spain for a total of 180 students directly benefitting from the project.
In addition to this, the project does not exclusively focus on pupils, but it also considers in the skills acquisition process the teachers themselves. The teachers will be exposed to a very international and multidisciplinary environment, they will acquire new competencies and knowledge, to be transferred not only to the selected classes of students but granting a way more extensive indirect impact in the future.
In this frame, Eurisy has the task of outreaching and raising public awareness of the project. Eurisy is responsible for disseminating the outputs of GIS4Schools and bringing the project closer to the space sector.
What do you think we need in order to improve GI and EO skills in Europe?
Eurisy developed extensive expertise in the field of space applications and solutions for end-users. When working with sectors other than space you immediately realize how space is still conceived by the majority of people as a solely technology-driven sector, the realm of astronauts and big scientific missions to explore our universe with no or very limited impact on terrestrial activities and the economic growth. We all know that this is a misconception and that space assets especially thanks to the terabytes of information provided every day by our space infrastructure has a strong, direct, and multifaceted impact on Earth. The space downstream sector is currently one of the most promising fields for entrepreneurs providing endless opportunities for business. It is indeed growing at a very fast and steady pace driven by the integration of satellite-based datasets with terrestrial sensors as well as digital solutions the IOP and AI.
However, there is still a deep lack of knowledge outside our niche on the numerous benefits satellite applications bring to society. This lack of awareness on the potential of satellite-based solution contributed to long isolation of the sector, a relative difficulty in the uptake/use of satellite solutions and eventually in a lack of a skilled workforce.
In my opinion, what we need to improve GI and EO skills in Europe is a cultural change towards the sector at large and we will achieve our goal only if we manage to adopt new approaches to stimulate the curiosity and to engage young generations, the workforce of tomorrow.
High schools’ curricula should include new formative opportunities to introduce some basics elements on how to access EO resources, how to process, analyze, interpret and transform actionable information. More educational activities should be included in the annual planning of the lessons including hands-on trainings, summer schools. In addition, more interactive educational material should be available (videos, apps, platforms) to respond to the interest of pupils of further deepen their knowledge; and finally, the launch of competitions and prizes should be more frequent and should address pupils. Students more aware of the opportunities offered by one sector will more likely continue pursuing a career in that domain thus increasing the enrollment in STEM disciplines.
Finally, skills acquisition should be a priority also for professionals: it would be useful to create training courses for beginners in all those sectors where space data at large represent an added value.
Why was it important for you to join EO4GEO?
Joining EO4GEO is a great opportunity for those who want to pave the way for the future workforce in the GI/EO sector. To Eurisy being part of such a broad European network of suchlike organizations striving to increase GI and EO skills in Europe is very relevant to coordinate, to catalyze and strengthen our actions thanks to the large visibility offered by the partnership.
In addition to this, Eurisy is willing to create new synergies with the partners of EO4GEO to work together with a spirit of continuity to the future of the alliance. In particular, Eurisy aims at setting up partnerships with the partners of the Alliance to further implement future activities outside the frame of EO4GEO to tackle specific challenges related to the development of learning tools for students, young professionals, and lastly, experienced professionals.
