EO4GEO: bridging the gap of EO*GI skills



EO4GEO - Towards an innovative strategy
for skills development and capacity building in the space geo-information sector supporting Copernicus user uptake

The space/ geospatial domain covers a vast domain with many technologies and a variety of complex space/ geospatial data, however, there is not one single education or training provider that can cover to full domain. Moreover, the space/ geospatial sector is also linked to many other disciplines such as ICT, information management, mathematics and others, and series of applications (environment, transport, mobility, spatial and urban policy, etc.), which makes the education even more challenging. All stakeholders of the education and space/ geospatial sectors confirms that they urgently need the body of knowledge. The potential benefits are acknowledged by big space/ geospatial industry companies, as well as SMEs – who develop activities that cover the whole Europe and therefore seeks high quality GI and EO professionals that also can be recruited in one country and employed in the same or in any other country.

 

Objective:

The EO4GEO project aims to help bridging the skills gap between supply and demand of education and training in the space/ geospatial sector by reinforcing the existing ecosystem and fostering the uptake and integration of space/ geospatial data and services in end-user applications.

Activities:

To achieve the main objective of the EO4GEO project the partners will implement following activities:

  1. Development of a long-term and sustainable strategy to fill the gap between supply of and demand for space/ geospatial education and training taking into account the current and expected technological and non-technological developments in the space/ geospatial and related sectors (e.g. ICT);
  2. Defining an ontology-based Body of Knowledge for the space/ geospatial sector based on previous efforts by mobilizing an extended network of domain experts in a collaborative environment;
  3. Development and integration of a dynamic platform with associated tools that allows: a collaborative method for integrating new concepts (theories, methods, technologies, etc.) and update existing concepts for Body of Knowledge for GI and EO; the design of curricula for academic and VET; direct access, not only to the training materials, but also to space and geospatial data, case-based learning scenario’s, self-tests and other relevant materials;
  4. Designing and development of a series of curricula for different types of occupational profiles in the sector, making use of this Body of Knowledge and considering the identified needs, and to develop a rich portfolio of training modules directly usable in the context of Copernicus and other relevant programmes;
  5. Designing, development and conducting of a series of training actions for selected set of scenarios for three sub-sectors – integrated applications, smart cities and climate change – supported by remote sensing and geospatial technology in order to test and validate the approach, the platform, the designed curricula and developed training modules;
  6. Development and endorsement of a long-term Action Plan based on the strategy developed and the experience gained in the implementation phase including: a Governance Model and Structure; a Business Plan to become financially sustainable; a plan for mainstreaming, promoting and multiplying the approach in other sub-sectors; and a plan to roll-out the technical solutions developed.

Project duration: January 2018 – June 30th 2022

Leading partner: Geographic information Systems International Group (Italy)

Partners:

EO4GEO is implemented by 26 partners from 16 countries across academia, private and public sector active in the education/ training and space/ geospatial sectors.

IES project coordinator: Inese Suija – Markova, inese.suija@videsinstituts.lv

The project is supported by: Erasmus+ Programme of the European Union

More about the project here.

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