Towards Gender Equality in Education and Career in the Earth Observation and GI Sector

Ponència del XXIV ISPRS Congress, 5–9 July 2021. The International Archives of Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing and Spatial Information Sciences, Volume XLIII-B5-2021, 2021, pp.21-27Gender inequality is omnipresent in our society and in the field of education and training, the gender gap is especially evident in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) disciplines. While different studies have been conducted about potential reasons explaining this gap, little is known about gender inequality and underlying factors in the Earth Observation and Geoinformatics (EO*GI) domain. To close some parts of this knowledge gap, the initiative Women in Copernicus was established with the overall goal to make women working in the EO*GI field and especially in the Copernicus ecosystem more visible. This paper analyses the results of a survey of 462 women identifying reasons for not choosing STEM education and the barriers related to educational choices in their career path. The main obstacles that hinder choosing a STEM education for these women are stereotypes in society, missing female role models but also culture, television and society message transmitted by the media. The lack of self-confidence is an essential factor in this choice and is also experienced as a barrier during individual career paths. This analysis provides insights valuable for political decisions making targeting at a gender-balanced work environment and emphasizes the importance of attracting more girls and young women towards a STEM education and supporting them during their career to reach skills and occupational equality and strengthen the economic development of the EO*GI sector

The H2020 OCRE Project Opens the Gates of the Commercial Cloud and EO Services Usage to the Research Community

Cloud and Earth Observation (EO) based services offer the European Research community a wealth of powerful tools. However, for many researchers these tools are currently out of reach. It is difficult to find and select suitable services. Establishing agreements with cloud and EO service providers and ensuring legal and technical compliance requires specialist skills and takes an inordinate amount of time. Equally, service providers find it difficult to reach and meet the needs of the research community in technical, financial and legal areas. The Open Clouds for Research Environments consortium (OCRE) will change this, by putting in place an easy adoption route. In the autumn of 2019, OCRE will run a pan-European tender and establish framework agreements with service providers who meet the requirements of the research community. 10.000 European research and education institutes will be able to directly consume these offerings via the European Open Science Cloud service catalogue, through ready-to-use agreements. They will not have to run a tender of their own. In addition, to stimulate usage, OCRE will make available 9.5 million euro in service credits (vouchers), through adoption funds from the European Commission. OCRE is a pioneer project without precedence, with potentially high impact in the future EO market activities and evolution of service offering, with the objective to burst the usage of EO commercial services by the research environment

The Progressive Use of Satellite Technology for Disaster Management Relief: Challenges to a Legal and Policy Framework

All countries, even rich ones, are vulnerable to natural disasters. While this may not be avoidable the impacts on affected populations can be minimized through implementing an efficient disaster management policy. This is particularly significant given that the cost to human life and the economy rises each year, regardless of how many natural disasters occur per annum. For instance, 244 million victims were impacted by natural disasters in 2011, compared with 217 million victims in 2010. In 2011 an estimated US$366 billion was incurred in damages.This is three times the damages incurred in 2010, which was registered at US$109 billion. Consequently, national governments and the international community have recognized the necessity of using all available assets and means for effectuating a more progressive disaster management practice. Remote sensing technologies, in particular, have proven to be a most useful tool and have been utilized in several natural disasters situations, such as the Sichuan Earthquake in China in 2008, the Honshu Tsunami in Japan in 2011, and Hurricane Sandy in the US in 2012. Many challenges still remain before these satellite applications can be made widely accessible to all nations for disaster management. This paper identifies ongoing challenges in space policy and law, correlating remote sensing practices, and data sharing issues for humanitarian relief following natural disasters. This paper concludes that, a new policy framework should be developed specific to the application of satellite technologies for disaster management

Women in Copernicus: Global analysis of the survey

This report presents the results of the Women in Copernicus survey. The survey ran between July and September 2020 and aimed at acquiring information on the women working in the Copernicus sector. In particular, the survey included questions about individual background and career path, facilitators in the professional development and barriers faced because of gender