EO4GEO – “Towards an innovative strategy for skills development and capacity building in the space geo-information sector supporting Copernicus User Uptake”. EO4GEO is an Erasmus+ Sector Skills Alliance gathering 26 partners from 12 countries from academia, private and public sector active in the education/training and space/geospatial sectors. EO4GEO 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. EO4GEO will work in an multi- and interdisciplinary way and apply innovative solutions for its education and training actions including: case based and collaborative learning scenarios; learning-while-doing in a living lab environment; on-the-job training; the co-creation of knowledge, skills and competencies; etc. EO4GEO will define 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). The strategy will be implemented by: creating and maintaining an ontology-based Body of Knowledge for the space/geospatial sector based on previous efforts; developing and integrating a dynamic collaborative platform with associated tools; designing and developing a series of curricula and a rich portfolio of training modules directly usable in the context of Copernicus and other relevant programmes and conducting a series of training actions for a selected set of scenario’s in three sub-sectors - integrated applications, smart cities and climate change to test and validate the approach. Finally a long-term Action Plan will be developed and endorsed to roll-out and sustain the proposed solutions.
The vision of EO4GEO is to foster the growth of the European EO*GI sector ensuring a workforce with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. The mission of EO4GEO is to ensure the strategic cooperation among stakeholders on skills development in the EO*GI sector.The leading objective of the EO4GEO project is to reduce the skills gap to meet the needs by industry, government and society by reinforcing the existing EO*GI training and education ecosystem.
The space/geospatial sector is of strategic importance since it provides and could further improve support to many European, national and sub-national policy domains such as environmental monitoring, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), disaster and crisis management, urban and spatial planning, etc. However, it has been observed that these rich infrastructures are still used in a sub-optimal way, and skilled work force is needed for the sector to grow through the uptake of data & services.
<< Background >> The space/geospatial sector is of strategic importance since it provides and could further improve support to many European, national and sub-national policy domains such as environmental monitoring, the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), disaster and crisis management, urban and spatial planning, etc. However, it has been observed that these rich infrastructures are still used in a sub-optimal way, and skilled work force is needed for the sector to grow through the uptake of data & services. << Objectives >> The vision of EO4GEO is to foster the growth of the European EO*GI sector ensuring a workforce with the right skills, in the right place, at the right time. The mission of EO4GEO is to ensure the strategic cooperation among stakeholders on skills development in the EO*GI sector.The leading objective of the EO4GEO project is to reduce the skills gap to meet the needs by industry, government and society by reinforcing the existing EO*GI training and education ecosystem. << Implementation >> A sector skills intellingence was performed at first. Based on that, a sector skills strategy was drafted and implemented through an ontology-based body of knowledge and a set of tools supporting curricula development and definition of occupational profiles. An educational offer consisting in several resources was developed and tested in a series of training action. The achieved results are being further maintained and developed thanks to a long-term action plan endorsed by key stakeholders. << Results >> Among the mains outcomes we can quote the EO4GEO Body of Knowledge and related tools, the EO Data Exploration and Analysis Tools, the educational offers, the training materials and the learning platform, consisting in a Moodle instance collecting the training actions organized, the mobility programme, the Sector Skills Strategy in the EO*GI sector and the Alliance itself, supported by the Long-term Action Plan. For more details and insight, please visit www.eo4geo.eu