I am just back from the GEO Plenary in Washington. We had a really good week; several things stand out 😉

Firstly, we were able to take a delegation of 7 companies to participate. Generally, the feedback from those who were there was good and the whole event was noticeably better than in previous years; especially the side events which were much better organised and well-attended. Thank you to the GEO Secretariat for making this possible.

Secondly, we participated to the meeting between the GEO ExComm and the commercial sector. Massimo Comparini (eGEOS and EARSC director) represented EARSC in the meeting alongside Airbus, DigitalGlobe, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Harris, ESRI, Acclimatise and LocateIT. It was a good discussion and opens the way towards further and better co-operation between companies and GEO. I think EARSC can play a key role especially towards ensuring access to SME’s which can otherwise find it difficult.

Thirdly, Monica presented our work on maturity indicators and on SDG’s in 2 separate meetings. There was a lot of interest in both and now we look to see how we can sustain the work in partnership with GEO.

Fourthly, we (EARSC) were the co-organiser along with NOAA, USGS and ESA of a 2 day workshop on “Demonstrating the Value of Earth Observations”. This was very well-attended and very well-appreciated. It brought together key experts from around the world to discuss different methods of assessing the value whether by economic means or by story-telling. Over the 2 days some 60 analysts discussed their approaches with a lot of insights emerging. A proceedings will be published and the group will continue with a meeting envisaged in Europe in around 12 to 18 months time. In the meantime we shall examine how links to GEO can be enhanced especially with regard to communications and outreach.

Fifthly, there were numerous informal meetings and discussions on many topics and many new contacts were made. The week becomes increasingly important as a networking opportunity as well as the chance to discuss specific topics with experts from around the world. Next year will be in Tokyo; we shall be there.

With the launch last Friday of the latest Sentinel, the range of data and services available from Copernicus increases further. Sentinel 5P will provide data on atmospheric chemistry and promises new products on air quality in the near future.

Copernicus is a wonderful success story for Europe. It is the foremost, operational satellite system in the world and through the 6 Copernicus Services is providing not just satellite data but information services to meet the needs of European policy makers.

Thoughts are now turning to the next generation of satellites and how Copernicus can evolve. EARSC has provided views on behalf of the industry based around 3 core elements; providing sustained access to data, developing demand especially in the public sector, and unleashing the potential of the downstream sector by creating an environment where private investment can be mobilised. Our position paper on the subject can be found on our web-site. Recently, a presentation was made to the EU Council space working party on the views of the EO services industry.

But increasingly we hear how the value-added industry is going to disappear as machine learning and automatic algorithms create new interpretations of satellite imagery. Indeed, we foresaw this trend 2 years ago and reacted through two key steps. Firstly, to ask for improved access to the existing data and information which should be combined with other data sources to broaden the scope. Secondly, we set out our vision for a Marketplace for EO services and called for support to set it up. The first was manifest with the Copernicus DIAS (Data and Information Access Service) and the second through our own initiative; eoMALL. The DIAS tender has been decided and negotiations are nearing completion with the selected winners. For eoMALL, the tender has also closed and evaluations proceeding. Both platforms are intended to become operational in the first quarter of 2018.

But the pace of change seems to be getting even faster and new trends need to be considered. Firstly, I do not believe the value-added sector will disappear. I do agree that more and more of the services will become automatic and hence open new markets to operators. I think that we shall see a shift towards vertical markets where specific services are targeted. Recently, BayWa, an agriculture supplies company took a 51% stake in Vista, a German VA company specialising in agriculture services using EO. We may see more of this type of venture, or we may see more consolidation amongst the VA companies - as recently where CLS has bought out SIRS another french service provider specialised in land products. Alternatively, the new satellite operators may push downstream to secure services based on their own data. This would lead to integrated offers and could result in another wave of industry mergers.

Either move could be good news for VA companies which continue to be the gateway to the end user market. The rich diversity of skills and competences developed over nearly 30 years of research should become even more effective as the amount and type of data increases and new processing techniques become readily available to take away some of the hard number-crunching needed for today’s products. This should lead to new services, of higher quality, more affordable and open to a new-wider market.

On the other hand, maybe those saying the VA industry will disappear are right. Squeezed between satellite operators seeking whatever markets they can find for their data and large IT companies, throwing resources at machine learning and automated processing, will the middle part of the value chain be able to survive? They could be absorbed by those even closer to the end-user ie the IT players, and seamlessly integrated into vertical businesses as a small part of a much wider offer. Today, the IT players are very effective in the B2C market but less so in B2B. Will this be a factor in the evolution of the sector?

What will these trends mean for the VA industry, or the EO services industry, as it is today? How should the VA industry react and re-position in face of these technology and market forces? To seek answers to these questions, we propose to organise a workshop in the new year to consider these questions and how industry leaders view the future. Planning has just started and we’ll make announcements as soon as details are available; watch this space! In the meantime, if you wish to comment then we should be delighted to hear from you either by email or through comments left on the page.

I had the pleasure last week to make a short presentation to the EU Council Space Working Party. For those lost in the complexities of Brussels and EU governance this is the group which prepares decisions to be taken by the EU Council in all matters pertaining to space in the EU. But do not be confused with the ESA governance which is completely different - except that when the ministers meet together in either ESA council or the EU council, there are often the same people around each table; just that they are wearing different hats!! But the Space Working Party is - as the name suggests - where the real work is done to prepare the decisions.

They meet quite regularly; under the chair of the EU presidency which is currently Estonia whose representative had invited me to present. The topic on the table is to prepare for an informal minsters meeting in Tallinn in November where one topic will be to start to prepare for a new regulation on Copernicus defining the next phase of work from 2012 to 2027. Many ideas for new sensors and new Sentinel satellites are being developed,and whilst this is of strong interest to the EO Services sector, the concerns are more focused more on access to data and development of a new market in EO services. We have set out our thoughts in a dedicated position paper which is what I had been asked to present.

As the market is changing so rapidly, it is very hard to predict where it will be in even 5 years time. Europe has a strong industry today and needs to take steps to try to help position this for the future. We see a very strong trend towards on-line services even if today, we estimate that only around 5 % of the revenues of the sector are coming from automatically generated products. With the advent of high speed processing, cloud storage and machine learning the stage is set for a squeeze on traditional, hand-crafted products which dominate today's market. So the sector faces both opportunity and threat from two directions. Firstly, increasing availability of data is driving prices down but at the same time opening up many new possible products. Secondly, IT technology is reducing the skill-level and thematic knowledge needed to generate products but opening up the possibility of their entry into many new very large-scale markets.

How all this will play out is anyone's guess today. But I find it hard to imagine that over 3 decades of hard-won knowledge will be replaced overnight. I believe that this same expertise will be a platform from which to develop, but companies will need to be highly agile, innovative and ready to adapt. Hence, the key policy steps must be to help create the conditions for the industry. This is a challenge when the public stakeholders are also institutions with a long reaction time. It is even more difficult if there is no dialogue. Hence, our primary request in the position paper is to establish a formal mechanism whereby the industry viewpoint can be heard by the decision makers. The second request is to establish conditions whereby public customers - which are still the backbone of the market - can themselves become more flexible which leads to the third main request which is to concentrate on buying services and not infrastructure as has been the case in the past. This can truly lead to a situation where public and private working together can be a win:win situation.