Competitions and opportunities
Earth Observation Excellence Award
The Earth Observation Excellence Award shines a spotlight on visionary scientific researchers and innovators who are pushing the limits of Earth observation technology to help address Earth science challenges. This prestigious award honours their commitment to harnessing European satellite data in their quest for groundbreaking solutions.
Status: The winner was announced in April 2024.
ESA Digital Twin Earth
ESA's Digital Twin Earth programme aims at bringing the latest Earth observation-based products, science results and capabilities to a pre-operational level and develop a comprehensive set of novel Earth observation-based Digital Twins Components, to demonstrate the potential value of Earth observation for the future evolution of DestinE.
Status: Expression of interest deadline was 15 May 2023.
IoT Space Challenge
ESA and hubraum are collaborating on a joint prototyping programme that combines the Internet-of-Things (IoT) with Earth observation data. The aim is to inspire start-ups and support them with access to ESA’s data and the Copernicus Data Space Ecosystem. Workshops are held at hubraum’s campuses in Berlin and Krakow. A prize of up to €60,000 is on offer.
Status: Winners presented their products at ESA's Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum.
Little Pictures Competition
ESA invites artists and enthusiasts to transform decades of satellite climate data into impactful visuals to help bridge the gap between climate science, policy makers and the wider public. The winner gets the opportunity to present their data visualisation at the UN COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates.
Status: The winner was announced at COP28.
Living Planet Fellowship
The Living Planet Fellowship supports the new generation of scientists in ESA Member States to undertake cutting-edge research in Earth observation and Earth system science, to maximise the scientific impact of ESA missions and the European Earth observation capacity and respond to the main challenges of the ESA science strategy.
Status: Proposal submission deadline was 27 October 2023.
The CommEO Award
The CommEO Award is aimed at providing visibility, networking and matchmaking opportunities to European space start-ups active in the field of Earth observation that can demonstrate the most promising and convincing commercialisation plans for their product and/or service.
Status: The winners were announced at ESA's Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum.
