A major workshop took place in Frascati over 3 days. Hosted by ESRIN, it was organised by ESA, USGS, NOAA, EC, Fourbridges and EARSC on the subject of how to improve the measurement of the Value of EO. Around 60 experts from around the world and covering several important disciplines gathered to exchange views on how to develop clearer, stronger and credible messages for policy makers and citizens about the value of the investments being made in EO technologies. A series of round tables discussed the stakeholders’ needs, the experiences from other domains and then the value coming in 5 different areas; socio-economic, environmental, regulatory, innovation and entrepreneurship and scientific advances. A large number of cases were exposed from many speakers and covering many countries and several continents.

For more information, details are on the SeBS web-site; proceedings and presentations will be available in due course.

From EARSC perspective, it gave us an opportunity to highlight achievements from the SeBS project where the 10 case studies now completed were used to illustrate benefits in each of those 5 areas. It gave us the opportunity to compare and contrast the methodology which we use with that of others and also to identify a number of areas where improvements can be made. We anticipate that the GeoValue community, which formed the heart of those attending can be extended to improve these benefits analyses and to provide better evidence for policy makers.

The scope of the activity was explored. At previous workshops, the focus has been on SeBS like cases including different approaches from the different players. In this workshop we also started to look at other types of analyses mostly linked to or stimulated by the 5 themes. So as an example, the innovation and entrepreneurship theme had led to a dedicated analysis by EARSC into start-ups but also stimulated comments from Canada, Australia and South Africa about the industrial landscape. So it is possible that more knowledge can be exchanged on survey methodologies which could be extremely helpful to enable comparisons at the global level.

A side-event is planned for the GEO plenary in Canberra, to report on the findings of the workshop, to discuss evolution of the common effort and to encourage others to join the GeoValue community which is now also a part of the GEO work-programme. We shall be pleased if you can join us.