This Echo is READ ONLY !   NO Un-Authorized Messages Please!
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

European Space Agency

Press Release

Industry gathers for ESA/EC global monitoring programme

9 April 2003
 
Representatives from 10 industry consortia met recently to plan the
next phase of the ESA's contribution to the Global Monitoring for
Environment and Security (GMES) programme. 
 
The consortia were selected following an evaluation of proposals
received last year for the GMES Services Elements (GSE), the initial
stage of ESA's five-year, €83 million commitment to the GMES
programme.

GMES is an initiative co-sponsored by ESA and the European Commission
to develop a global monitoring capability for Europe's policymakers
and other end users. Total GMES funding is expected to reach €400
million to develop and implement the programme by 2008.

The GSE consortia include more than 125 companies, university and
other research firms, consultancies and end-user organisations that
include international, national and other government agencies. Each
consortium is headed by a prime contractor and consists of up to 20
organisations with an ESA-mandated mix of operational service
providers, strategy consultants, system developers, R&D partners and
end users. 

The groups will focus on developing capabilities and identifying the
needs of end users under two-phase, 20-month contracts totalling €15
million. Funding will be split evenly among the 10 consortia.

The exact composition of the consortia will be announced as the
contracts are finalised and signed over the next few months. A
week-long meeting in mid-March at ESA's ESRIN facility outside of
Rome brought the groups together for the first time to outline
end-user requirements and define which existing and future Earth
observation services to include in the GMES Service Elements,
explained Stephen Briggs, head of ESA's Earth observation
applications. 

"The real winners in GMES will be the end-users," Briggs said. "ESA
has tasked the 10 GSE consortia over the next 20 months to convert
the high-level GMES strategy into a concrete portfolio of reliable
environmental information services, and there will be plenty more to
come in the future" 

Each of the 10 groups will start delivering services immediately, and
will back this up with a blueprint for delivering long-term
monitoring for themes including:

    * forests 
    * water resources 
    * disaster risk assessment and relief 
    * agriculture 
    * polar regions 
    * urban areas. 

GMES background

GMES is a decision-support system for use by the public and public
policymakers, with the capability of acquiring, processing,
interpreting and distributing useful information related to the
environment, risk management and natural resources.

At a global level, GMES will provide new verification tools to
contribute to the precise monitoring of compliance with international
agreements, such as the Kyoto protocol on climate change, as well as
security and international aid agreements. At the EU regional level,
GMES will provide objective data to support a broad range of public
policies, including regional development, transportation, agriculture
and foreign policy. GMES also will help local authorities pinpoint
environmental problems and minimize the risks and consequences of
environmental changes on local populations.

GMES is a cornerstone of the unified European space strategy
developed by EC and ESA. Along with the Galileo global satellite
navigation system, GMES is key to the realisation of a unified space
policy emerging from the ever-closer partnership between the two
organisations.

 - END OF FILE -
==========

@Message posted automagically by IMTHINGS POST 1.30
---