CONSORTIUM

Partners

SatCen

SATCEN is an Agency of the Council of the European Union (EU) whose mission is to support the decision-making and actions of the EU in the field of the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) and in particular the Common Security and Defence Policy (CSDP), including EU crisis management missions and operations. SATCEN has been involved in the Copernicus Security Services since its definition and preoperational setup (e.g. participating in FP7 projects such as G-NEXT and SAGRES) and runs operationally the Copernicus SEA Service since May 2017. With a long-standing experience in R&D activities, SATCEN has been involved in several projects related to Climate Security (H2020 GEM and E-SHAPE). In CENTAUR, SATCEN leads the Analysis of requirements and use cases definition and participates in user engagement and validation activities.

ECMWF

ECMWF is the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, being both a research institute and a 24/7 operational service, producing global numerical weather predictions. The Centre has one of the largest supercomputer facilities and meteorological data archives in the world. ECMWF operates two services from the EU’s Copernicus Earth observation programme, the Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service (CAMS) and the Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) and contributes to the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS), through EFAS/GloFAS (floods) and EFFIS/GWIS (fires). The ECMWF Forecast Department is deeply involved in CENTAUR, bringing all its operational and research experience in terms of forecast and predictions of hydrological extreme events and droughts. ECMWF covers specific and cross-cutting activities relevant to Weather-related content not only providing data and products but also taking part in the design and development of the indicators.

VITO

VITO is an independent Flemish research organisation in the area of clean tech and sustainable development and is a main partner of the project, through the direct involvement of its Remote Sensing Department; the expertise of VITO in the Remote Sensing processing to develop Agriculture applications, including developing countries is well-known. Since 2000, VITO is the basic provider of remote sensing data to EU JRC-MARS, providing a series of qualified bio-geophysical products on the status and evolution of the land surface, at a global scale and at mid to low spatial resolution. VITO activities in CENTAUR relate to the food security context, in particular with the development of specific innovative indicators.

GMV

GMV (Aerospace and Defence SA) is involved in CENTAUR through its Remote Sensing & Geospatial Analytics Division and its Business Unit for Ground Segments. GMV has been a major contributor in developing Europe’s EO-based emergency management and operational security capabilities since the early stages, through its participation in the CEMS and the Copernicus Security Service. Moreover, satellite data processing and analysis is at GMV’s core business, with advanced analysis techniques, such as machine and deep learning, data fusion, and cloud computing. Several recent projects have involved GMV on themes related to water and food security (e.g., H2020 AfriCultuReS & HumMingBird, ESA’s South Africa Drought Monitoring) with the delivery for various regions in Africa of climatic, production, biophysical and economic information. At GMV, we provide space agencies, satellite operators, and clients in the space sector from around the world the best high-tech solutions to meet data processing needs. We design ground segment solutions for a wide variety of space missions that provide earth observation, science, and weather information. GMV has developed systems for 80 Earth observation (EO) satellites on missions for the ESA, EUMETSAT, Copernicus, CNES, DLR, NASA, and Hisdesat. The company has developed a suit of cloud products for multi-mission data processing , named prodigi, also supporting production of added-value applications for Geo-Information Centers.

HENSOLDT Analytics

HENSOLDT Analytics (present SME status subject to change due to the effects of an acquisition in 2021) is a global leading provider of Open-Source Intelligence (OSINT) systems and Natural Language Processing technologies, such as Automatic Speech Recognition, key elements for media monitoring and analysis. HENSOLDT Analytics focuses on end-to-end systems and tools that can efficiently extract and analyse information from open sources (TV, radio, blogs, social media, etc.) and turn them into actionable intelligence. HENSOLDT has developed a Media Mining System to gather, process, semantically enrich and visualise information in more than 30 languages from traditional as well as social media. In CENTAUR, HENSOLDT has a key role in the data extraction, identifying relevant data sources for all the areas of interest and the use cases, and defining a set of relevant Open-Source indicators to be integrated.

SpaceTec Partners

SpaceTec Partners leads the communication and dissemination activities. Their broad array of services includes strategy and technology consulting, communication activities, and interdisciplinary project management mainly for public institutions (e.g. European Commission, European Space Agency, European GNSS Agency, European Parliament, National Ministries, etc.) in the space and space applications domain. SpaceTec Partners further engages in venture capital and provides business coaching for start-ups and SMEs. SpaceTec’s areas of activity include space (earth observation, navigation, satellite communications, exploration and situational awareness), geo-information, security & defence, transportation & aviation, mobile & mobility, and energy.

UniStra/SERTIT

UNISTRA/SERTIT has a long-term experience in the CEMS: it is part of project management, activation management and a production site in CEMS Rapid Mapping and is a Production Site, technical manager within FLEX and a Technical Point of Contact and Production Site in CEMS Disaster Risk & Recovery. Starting from its experience in these operational activities in the Copernicus Services, UNISTRA/SERTIT provides CENTAUR not only the necessary involvement in the service evolution but also the expert liaison with the GEOGLAM community, for the water and food security themes, through the involvement of its senior domain expert Dr Inbal Becker-Reshef, member of the GEOGLAM-Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) Technical Team, whose expertise is relevant to advancing the use of satellite information for agricultural monitoring, supporting decisions in food security and agricultural markets.

Tracasa

TRACASA is a Spanish company offering cartographic services, territorial studies, territorial information systems and solutions for the modernisation of the administration. TRACASA is involved, through JRC, in the CEMS Mapping Validation, on the service outputs produced by the Rapid Mapping and Risk and Recovery Mapping. The wide spectrum of activities framed in the Validation Service has allowed it to become key to improving the Mapping component through the testing of new methodologies, data input types, or approaches for the creation of emergency cartography in the frame of the CEMS. The TRACASA Territorial and Spatial Engineering Department bring its expertise in CENTAUR, in the demo validation and the development of innovative indicators in the specific urban flood context.

CLS

CLS is a subsidiary of the French Space Agency (CNES) and IFREMER, for more than 30 years has been contributing to major international space programmes and research initiatives and has developed a wide range of operational services using satellite and in-situ data devoted to sustainability challenges. CENTAUR involves the CLS Environment & Climate Monitoring department, where the Rapid Mapping unit provides operational services within CEMS Rapid Mapping and its experience in the flood emergency context. The CLS activities in the project are relevant to the urban flood context.

DLR

The DLR Land Surface Department studies and quantifies global change as manifested on Earth‘s land surface, and addresses socially relevant issues. Information products for planning purposes as well as innovative methods for assessing earth observation data (multispectral, hyperspectral, SAR) are developed within a wide range of geoscience topics at different spatial scales (global, regional, national, local), processing, thanks to huge computing capacity, lengthy time series and statistics. Results and outcomes cover specific themes, among others, relevant to CENTAUR, such as Smart Cities and Spatial Development, Agroecosystems and Phenology.

Adelphi

Adelphi is the leading independent think-and-do tank in Europe for climate, environment and development, with 280 strategists, and practitioners. Adelphi conducts conflict and risk analyses for international organisations and foreign policy and international development actors, in particular on risks and conflicts involving climate or the environment. Among relatable projects in place, HABITABLE, on the current linkages between climate impacts and migration and displacement patterns and CASCADES, identifying how the risks of climate change to countries, economies and peoples beyond Europe might cascade into Europe. The identification of security critical situations, in particular in the food security context, implies the development and tailoring of specific social, economic and political indicators. This activity is led by Adelphi.

Cherrydata

Cherrydata is a startup, founded in July 2018, as a spinoff of Politecnico di Milano (Italian school of engineering). Cherrydata offers software products and consulting services to support big data technology (BDT) projects through AI technologies. Cherrydata is experienced in designing and testing algorithms aimed at the classification of satellite information, by complementing low-resolution with high-resolution data, as well as in social media automated crawling and geolocation of retrieved information. In CENTAUR, Cherrydata is responsible for the development of synthetic crisis indices for urban flood and food security from the multi-source indicators.