RESEARCH
Participation in Marine-EO project
Marine-EO: All eyes on Horizon 2020’s first Earth Observation Pre-Commercial Procurement
Azores, 23th February 2017
Since 1st of January 2017, the Horizon 2020 project Marine-EO has been officially started, aiming at the implementation of the first Pre-Commercial Procurement (PCP) for Earth Observation services.
Marine-EO applies to a vast array of ocean-related areas covering the development, testing and validation of demand-driven Earth Observation based services in the fields of both (i) maritime environment monitoring (i.e. Fish farm monitoring, Marine Protected Areas (MPA) monitoring, Harmful algal blooms detection, Oil spill detection, Iceberg open channel detection, etc.) and (ii) security (i.e. unusual activity detection, change detection of irregular immigrants, border permeability mapping etc.).
This endeavor will support the development of sustainable supply chains for delivery of downstream EO and Copernicus-enabled services that meet the needs of public authorities around Europe.
Comprising of 9 partners from Greece, Portugal, Spain and Norway, the Consortium within a time span of 47 months will set the processes for publishing a call for tender that will invite the EO industry to develop robust innovative solutions beyond the current state-of-the art, in three PCP phases (solution design, prototyping and operational development). The total subcontracting cost of the procurement amounts to 3,4M€.
Expectations are high among stakeholders operating with Copernicus Downstream Services regarding the project’s potential for incremental and/or radical innovation expected in the field of maritime awareness and consequent leverage effect on the already existing Copernicus Services and products.
During the first semester of 2017, the Lead Procurer (DGPM-PT) will launch a Prior Information Notice (PIN) for the organization of an Open Market Consultation in order to start a dialogue with potential tenderers and end-users, to fine tune the R&D tender scope according to market needs. By the end of 2017, the PCP call for tender will be published in all relevant European tender platforms and the project’s website. The submission of tenders will remain open for at least 60 days.
CONSORTIUM: NATIONAL CENTER FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH "DEMOKRITOS", (GR)/ DIRECAO-GERAL DE POLITICA DO MAR, (PT)/ MINISTERIO DEL INTERIOR, (ES)/ HELLENIC CENTRE FOR MARINE RESEARCH, (GR)/ FUNDO REGIONAL PARA A CIENCIA E TECNOLOGIA, (PT)/ KYSTVERKET VEST, (NO)/ NATIONAL OBSERVATORY OF ATHENS, (GR)/ EUROPEAN UNION SATELLITE CENTRE, (ES)/ SINTEF OCEAN AS, (NO).
MRSG participates in MARINE-EO under contract with NATIONAL OBSERVATORY OF ATHENS, (GR).
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Project Objectives
MARINE-EO teams up a group of 5 maritime authorities (the buyers’ group) and a group of 4 prestigious scientific and technical organizations with significant experience in EO and maritime matters (the technical advisors) to achieve the following objectives:
Objective 1: Develop, test and validate two sets of demand-driven EO-based services, adopted on open standards, bringing incremental or radical innovations in the field of maritime awareness and leveraging on the existing Copernicus Services and other products from the Copernicus portfolio:
- Thematic Area 1 Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring and Climate Change: SATOCEAN service provides information about ocean parameters variability in time and space, best probable fishing areas, fish farm locations, and water quality. It also incorporates sea ice extent for safe navigation and maritime operations in the Arctic.
- Thematic Area 2 Copernicus Security: SATSURVEILLANCE service contributes to the development of EUROSUR regulation by providing services in response to Europe’s security challenges in the domains of Border Security.
Objective 2: Propose a set of “support” / “envelop” services which will better integrate the abovementioned EO and Copernicus-enabled services to the operational logic and code of conduct. Such services shall also bring “closer” the demand side (Public Authorities) with the EO data providers (COPERNICUS-contributing missions) and EO data experts and analysts (Service providers/ industry and SMEs) creating a dynamic environment for a single digital market to grow.
Objective 3: Strengthen transnational collaboration in maritime awareness sector by facilitating knowledge transfer and optimization of resources for the public authorities participating in the buyers group. This shall bring together the supply and demand side in order to foster the development of innovative solutions in response to the increasing demand for strengthening Earth Observation and Copernicus capabilities. In order to accomplish the aforementioned, an experienced group of partners will observe the problem from different perspectives, including an operational and a technical view , while working together for the development, integration and validation of innovative solutions in the field of Earth Observation, the harmonization of tools and methods for the EU wide testing and validation of systems, and the facilitation of public-private cooperation for the sake of market visibility.