Conference Proceedings: Strategy Report of CEOS

Summary of Responses to Questionnaire

ASI

Contact: Ms G Pulcrano
E-mail pulcrano@asi.it

Main Activities:
The nature of work at ASI are EO research and education, EO instruments and associated technology development, EO system development, data processing, application development and product generation.

EO Education & Training:
ASI values the education and training activities and has a committed programme of training. ASI organizes general and specific training modules for different levels - short and long duration courses and programmes for general public awareness, school, academic and professionals. The annual budget allocated for training is about 0.5% of the total budget. Total 5 people are involved for EO training related works at ASI.

ASI has a programme for fellowships and sponsors postdoctoral programmes.

ASI has developed EO education and materials - CD-ROMs, books, videos etc and is willing to share it with other agencies. ASI involves private sector agencies for developing these materials

ASI estimates that the national requirement of trained manpower is 400-500 persons per year.

ASI provides financial in/kind support to many EO educational institutions within and outside Italy.

ASI has the access to ERS and SRTM data and could consider requests for these data from EO educational institutions for education/training purposes.

Areas like HR radar data analysis, HR optical data assimilation etc are highlighted as future development areas thrusted for training.

ASI is willing to provide visiting faculty and experts to EO educational institutions based on mutual interests. ASI would also consider specific international fellowships and financial supports within the framework of agreements.

Suggestions for CEOS:
CEOS should develop online EO education and consulting support. It should also strengthen more contacts and awareness

BNSC
Contact: Alice Bunn
E-maiil: alice.bunn@nerc.ac.uk

Main Activities:
BNSC is a partnership of government institutions including research councils. BNSC's main activity is the basic research in Earth system through measurements from space. The main focus of EO education is the scientific understanding OF THE earth, environmental monitoring, meteorology and commerce.

EO Education & Training:
BNSC prepares teaching EO materials related to geography, science, information communication & technology. It aims to provide basic understanding of EO in schools. BNSC organizes seminars for school level, support conferences at academic level and publishes articles in specialist journals for professional level. BNSC supports universities and other organizations who hold their own courses of any type. The annual budget allocated for training is about 1% of the total budget. Total 4-5 people are involved for EO training related works at BNSC.

BNSC has developed EO education and materials - CD-ROMs and web education materials. It is willing to share CD-ROMs with other agencies. BNSC involves private sector agencies for supporting these activities.

BNSC estimates that the national requirement of ~5600 secondary schools or ~1000 children per school to be trained in the EO field.

Suggestions for CEOS:
CEOS should concentrate on increasing university undergraduates in the EO field. It must also concentrate on the techniques, which are maturing and going to come soon into operational use.

CCRS
Contact: Christinne Hutton
E-mail: chris.hutton@ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca

CSA
Contact: Virendra Jha
E-mail: virendra.jha@space.gc.ca

Main Activities:
CCRS and CSA mainly has programmes for developing EO techniques, technology, applications and has an active training and education, research. CSA/CCRS operates its own RADARSAT and acquires data from RADARSAT, SPOT, ERS and NOAA.

EO Education & Training:
The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) is a leading Centre of excellence in the use of earth-observation data, and supports an industry sector including the world leaders in global ground station, image analysis and radar mapping markets. CCRS is responsible for the reception, processing, archiving and dissemination of remotely sensed data for Canada. In conjunction with the private sector, it develops remote sensing technology and applications.

CSA is responsible for the development and implementation of the Canada Space Program (CSP). The objectives of the EO component of the CSP adopted by the Canadian Space Agency is to better understand, monitor and protect the Earth and its environment, and prepare the industry and the scientific community to meet the challenge of the emerging global Earth Observation market.

CCRS & CSA have a strong education and training component built in to their programmes. Three programs - User Education and Training Program (UETI), Earth Observation Pilot Projects Program (EOP3) and the RADARSAT User Development Program (RUDP) are major initiatives of recent (http://www.ccrs.nrcan.gc.ca/ccrs/eduref/educate.html). The focus is on assistance in national emergencies and to develop disaster management program for flood and forest fire studies. %% of the budget is allocated for education and training. About 5 dedicated persons address training issues and about 120 persons participate in different ways.

CCRS also has multiple level of education and training programmes - addressing public awareness, school level, university level and for professionals.

Funding for EO education and training is mainly government sponsored or programmatic (like GLOBESAR).

CCRS/CSA has developed training materials (books, posters, multimedia CDs, web based material videos etc), which is available on web site for public. On specific request, these are also made available to institutions. Much of these are developed through private sector agencies and the specific materials on radar remote sensing, RADRSAT applications, GLOBESAR, Geomatics, Watching Planets fro kids etc are highly valuable.

CCRS gets all EO education material development done by involving private sector.

CCRS/CSA is wiling to discuss partnerships for productionaisation and sharing of these materials - even through distance learning in developing countries. Governmental policies and fund availability would dictate this as also funding support.

CCRS/CSA estimates that about 400-500 persons over the world have been trained through its programmes.

CCRS/CSA has access to RADARSAT, SPOT, ERS and NOAA data and is willing to provide these for institutions.

CCRS/CSA identifies radar applications and hyper-spectral and hyper-spatial applications as thrust areas for education and training.

CCRS/CSA could offer experts/technical persons on the basis of specific requests and MOUs.

Suggestions:
CEOS should establish a forum where space agencies, educational institutions and private sector could interact towards addressing newer initiatives, programmes, needs and development in this field. WGEDu could be the forum for this and act as clearinghouse for education material and data for technology transfer.