The Copernicus User Uptake Strategy kick-started the European Commission's initiatives

The Copernicus User Uptake Strategy kick-started the European Commission’s initiatives

After a successful start of the operations of the Copernicus programme in 2014, the European Commission looked into opportunities for stimulating the user uptake of the massive amounts of free and open data and information generated by Copernicus. The Copernicus User Uptake study was focused on engaging public authorities, the private sector and civil society across the 28 EU Member States, Norway and Iceland as Copernicus Participating Countries. SpaceTec Partners defined a comprehensive and integrated user engagement study, which resulted in many of the initiatives currently run by the EC, such as the Copernicus Accelerator, Copernicus Support Office and workshops and training events.

The Copernicus programme is expected to generate economic and societal benefits for EU citizens. At the start-up of the programme, a coordinated approach to the various user uptake initiatives across the Copernicus Participating Countries was seen as instrumental for the uptake of Copernicus data. Tools to stimulate the uptake of Copernicus data and information, such as user information days, brochures, and business incubators, lacked continuity and sustainability, which needed to be addressed to generate the momentum Copernicus needed to reach its economic and societal benefits.

SpaceTec mapped the various existing user initiatives at different levels: national and local level, industry and research projects. Using the standardised assessment framework developed by SpaceTec, these initiatives were evaluated and best practices and areas for improvement were extracted to define recommendations to enable the European Commission to decide which user uptake tools would result in the envisaged economic and societal benefits.

Proposed network architecture of Copernicus User Uptake

The full study can be found here.