I start by wishing everyone reading this a Happy New Year! have been rather inactive on this blog, so a first new years’ resolution is to try to write more! In part it is caused by the volume of work which, as we start another new year, it is good to reflect on the successes from last year and the challenges which we face over the next 12 months – which largely stem from the aforementioned success!

In 2018 we have grown from 5 persons to 8 and are now looking for 2 more to join us. I emphasise that this has not been our goal - it is not our goal to grow!! Our goal is to do more for our members. To do this we pursue a mixed business model relying about 20% on membership fees and 80% on projects. All the projects are aimed at supporting companies in the sector – our membership - and we shall not take on work which does not reflect this aim.

The volume of project work is increasing but so is our membership and for the moment we maintain this 20:80 ratio business model. It is very important that we maintain our membership-based model and this is a fundamental philosophy of EARSC now and in the future.

In the last 3 weeks of 2018, we have had news of 2 highly important wins of EC H2020 grants. One we are leading and in the second one, we are a leading partner in the team.

The first is a project called PARSEC which comes under the EASME Innosup programme; supporting innovation in, and across, commercial sectors. It promises to be a very significant project and we are very excited about it. It will bring together innovators – small companies – to develop new ideas and products using EO and especially Copernicus data. We are working with clusters in agriculture, water and energy sectors each with large communities of companies. Through a two-stage process, innovators can apply in teams for a grant of up to €150k to develop their products and ideas. In the first stage, we expect 300 applications for up to 100 small grants leading to small teams which can then apply for the larger grant. The teams will be supported with technical, legal and market expertise as well as being supported with access to Copernicus data and information.

The second grant is for a significant role in the EuroGEOSS project. Here we shall lead the market uptake and outreach activity as well as having a strong role in what we call the sustainability booster (led by our close partners at Evenflow). In the project, some 27 pilots are introduced grouped within 7 showcases. The project will last 4 years and so to create a dynamic environment we wished to guard the capability to bring new pilots on board so that 27 at the beginning does not mean the same 27 (or less) at the end.

Overall, I refer to these 2 activities as fulfilling a theme of “from research to business” with the goal to help as many of the pilots as possible to become business ventures. The two projects are very complementary and should re-enforce each other as well as our major initiative called eoMALL (which will go live very shortly). PARSEC should kick-off for the 1^st April and EuroGEOSS looks likely to start on 1^st May. More on these in due course.