Published on 14 February 2022
The Copernicus Horizon 2035 Conference will take place on 16 and 17 February in Toulouse and online. It will be streamed live online to the general public. Organised by the French Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the European Commission, the event will feature various speakers and presentations focusing on the future of the European Copernicus programme.
The many consequences of climate change have revealed the need for the European Union to develop innovative and independent solutions to better meet environmental challenges.
This led to the creation of Copernicus, the EU’s Earth observation programme managed by the European Commission and implemented the Member States and delegated bodies.
Copernicus, an innovative environmental monitoring programme
The Copernicus programme provides the European Union with a high-performance environmental monitoring system.
Copernicus collects data that helps us better understand our planet and sustainably manage the environment we live in. This data is obtained from satellites (including the Sentinel missions) and in-situ systems such as ground-based, sea-borne or air-based infrastructures and sensors.
Copernicus supports the European Union’s public policies through the six services it offers, namely: atmosphere monitoring, marine environment monitoring, land monitoring, climate change, emergency management and security.
Copernicus Horizon 2035: A conference to anticipate future challenges
The conference will be opened by Frédériqe Vidal, French Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation; Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for the Internal Market; and Josef Aschbacher, Director General of the European Space Agency.
Three key speakers will offer their insight on monitoring the environment and the importance of the Copernicus programme:
- Barbara Pompili, French Minister for the Ecological Transition
- Thomas Pesquet, European Space Agency astronaut
- Youba Sokona, Vice-Chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change
Held over two days, the event will be centred around seven interactive sessions:
- Copernicus, a pillar of the ecological and digital transitions
Speakers:- Phil Evans, Director-General of EUMETSAT
- Pierre Bahurel, Director General of Mercator Ocean International
- Florence Rabier, Director-General of ECMWF (the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts)
- Hans Bruyninckx, Executive Director of the European Environment Agency (EEA)
- Stephen Quest, Director-General of the Joint Research Centre (JRC)
- Matthias Petschke, Director for Space at the European Commission
- Copernicus, taking the pulse of the planet: inspiring speeches
- Speaker: Yana Gevorgyan, Group on Earth Observations (GEO) Secretariat Director, and
- Cyril Crevoisier, senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS)
- A joint approach for Copernicus: Shared viewpoints of the trio of presidencies of the Council of the European Union
- Copernicus, looking toward 2035
- Boosting the use of Copernicus
- Encouraging market development in Europe
Numerous distinguished speakers will take part in these sessions on users’ adoption of the programme, including Rodrigo da Costa, Executive Director of the European Union Agency for the Space Programme (EUSPA); Marc Tondriaux, Chairman of the European Association of Remote Sensing Companies (EARSC); and Thierry Cotelle, President of NEREUS (Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies).
The Copernicus Horizon 2035 Conference is thus part of an effort to establish dialogue between the European Commission, Member States, delegated bodies and Copernicus users on current and future environmental concerns.
These discussions will contribute to Copernicus’ development for 2035 and beyond with the aim of anticipating and tackling the environmental challenges that our planet will face in the future.
With the goal of enabling Europe to strengthen and structure its efforts to combat climate change, the conference will gather the input of the speakers and participants regarding the future of Copernicus.
It will also emphasise two initiatives involving young people; the “mettons le plastique à l’index” (“blacklist plastic”) challenge for secondary school students, and a special Copernicus data challenge on solar forecasting as part of the annual competition organised by ENS (challengedata.ens.fr). Both initiatives are organised in collaboration with MINES ParisTech University.
Important information
The conference will be held remotely. Participants can register on the event platform to interact with other participants and ask the speakers questions. It will also be possible to watch the conference live without registration via the event’s digital platform here.