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: Call for nominations closes on 19 December 2024.
Any innovator using Earth observation data to tackle climate change and public health challenges is invited to join the ESA Φ-lab Grand Marathon. Using advanced technologies like AI, machine learning, and blockchain, teams should provide solutions that are scalable and market-ready, especially those for predicting climate events and infectious disease impacts.
Status: Applications deadline is 12 January 2025.
Local and regional authorities across Europe, as well as companies and institutions, are invited to submit short stories showcasing how Copernicus data or services are being used to address local and regional challenges. This new edition of the initiative seeks to expand and update the already existing collection of 99 user stories from public authorities and service providers across Europe.
Status: The call for articles closes on 31 January 2025.
Past opportunities
The CommEO Award is aimed at startups with innovative ideas, targeting the agriculture, decarbonisation and green finance markets. Selected applicants were invited to pitch their ideas at the second ESA Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum increasing their visibility to potential target markets, investors and industrial actors. The winners were awarded at ESA's Earth Observation Commercialisation Forum.
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.
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 were held at hubraum’s campuses in Berlin and Krakow.
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 presented its data visualisation at the UN COP28 climate conference in the United Arab Emirates.
