Reports

What makes a city smart? For the private companies and local administrations participating in the Nordic Edge Expo last September, a smart city is a place where community needs, new technologies and innovation meet. An ecosystem of urban planners, IT and renewable energy companies, community development experts, universities, research clusters, and residents, pursuing the common goal of building the city of the future.

Satellite applications have a role to play in the building of more sustainable, efficient and increasingly connected cities. This was the message of the speakers invited to attend the session organised by Eurisy during the three-day event. The session focusing on Satellite Applications for Infrastructure Management was organised under the Eurisy Space for Cities initiative, which aims to explore current and potential uses of satellite-based services to increase quality of life in cities. The current document details on speakers’ interventions and exchanges, whilst putting forward recommendations for future questions to be explored. 

Confirmed and potential users of satellite based services covering health care and environment (e.g. telemedicine, air pollution), as well as experts, private sector representatives and policy makers belonging to both space and non-space communities, were invited to Belfast in June 2017 to discuss the potential of satellite applications in these sectors.

On this occasion, attending delegates took the opportunity to share their experiences, lessons learned and exchange on how future technology-powered health and social care systems might look like. (Access the presentations here). The current document reflects on some of the lessons learned from the event, highlighting key points from the discussions that took place during the day. 

The 5th edition of Satellites Going Local collects testimonials from public and private organisations using satellite applications to improve their work and provide better services to the public.

For the non-space professionals they are intended to demonstrate, in a down-to-earth manner, how digital products and services that rely on satellite navigation, satellite communications and Earth observation, benefit professionals in all areas of activity.
Examples range from agriculture and environment, to risk management, to tourism and leisure, to infrastructure and building, to mobility and transport. To satellite professionals, they will offer insights into user needs, and possible business cases.

Potential and confirmed users of satellite applications (search and rescue organisations, national parks, geological offices and so on), as well as experts and policy makers, discussed the potential of satellite applications in the Alps, and what these could do for users in the environment, risk, and transport sectors. (Access the presentations here).

This document reflects some of the lessons learnt from the Eurisy conference held in Berchtesgaden on 27 October 2016. These conclusions are drawn from the discussions that took place during the event.

The new Eurisy publication “Satellites for Society: Reporting on operational uses of satellite-based services in the public sector” analyses more than 100 replies submitted to the Eurisy survey for public authorities in 2015.

Public managers were asked why they started using satellite-based services, how much the services cost and how the uptake was financed, which challenges they face, and how the satellite solutions help them saving time and resources while improving the quality of public services.

This publication is disseminated by Eurisy with the aim of contributing to building a knowledge base on the uses of satellite-based services in the public sector. By taking into account the direct feedback of public managers, the report offers a distinctive insight into the work of European public administrations, which will be useful to policy and decision-makers to increase the potential benefits of satellites for society.

The Eurisy survey for public authorities remains open and accessible in nine languages at this LINK.

Have a look at the key findings of the survey by downloading our infographic:

This document analyses the 49 replies submitted to the Eurisy survey for public authorities by 49 Polish public administrations.

The report was presented within the framework of a User Forum organised in Warsaw on the 19th of April 2016 by Eurisy, the Polish Ministry of Economic Development and the Polish Agency for Enterprise Development (PARP), with the support of the Polish Space Agency (POLSA) and the European Space Agency (ESA).

The goal of the User Forum was to gather a qualitative feedback on survey replies that would help organisers in building a series of country-targeted recommendations, which are presented at the beginning of this report. 

This document is the result of a consultation of stakeholders from the sports and leisure areas within the French county of Pyrénées-Atlantiques. This consultation took place as preliminary work for the “Outdoor Sports Surfing Avant-garde satellite solutions” conference co-organised by Eurisy, the local council of Pyrénées-Atlantiques and Capital High Tech. The discussions and conclusions of the conference also fed this document.

The conference was to identify the innovation potential space can generate in the outdoor sports one of the main economic sectors in the county, especially through satellite applications targeted for this market. The conference also served as a catalyst for cooperation between the two, and between public and private actors from the area, from other countries, and from the European level (Access the presentations here). 

Islands can prove to be real labs for ICT-driven innovation. They are small and flexible. This means they can test ideas fast and implement only the best of them. Islands are confronted with specific needs – whether due to their remoteness, their vulnerability to climate change, or the scarcity of their resources. Such challenges call for creative solutions. The conference brought together 90 participants from Maltese and European public authorities, SMEs, universities and policy-makers.

The event brought together SMEs, administrations and policy-makers from the Baltic States to discuss ways to increase the use of satellite resources in the region, in particular Copernicus and Galileo/EGNOS, the two satellite infrastructure programmes funded by the EU.

Before launching its survey for public authorities, Eurisy submitted its questionnaire to ten public administrations using satellite applications operationally.

The results of this work are presented in the analytical report “Operational uses of satellite-based applications in the public sector”, including a detailed description of the case studies reviewed.