NCEO provides the UK’s Natural Environment Research Council  (NERC) with national capability in Earth observation science – monitoring the health of our planet through satellite instruments and with world-class capability in interpreting these data.

We are a NERC research centre with more than 130 scientists distributed across leading UK universities and research organisations and led by Professor John Remedios at the University of Leicester. With an income of over £8 million per year, we provide the UK with core expertise in Earth Observation science, data sets and merging techniques, and model evaluation to underpin Earth System research and the UK’s international contribution to environmental science. Our scientists work strategically with space agencies, play significant roles in mission planning, and generate internationally-recognised data products from 20 different satellite instruments. Our scientists publish more than 300 research articles every year and contribute to major environmental science reports.

Organisational structure

NCEO’s capabilities are shared between five scientific core units supported by additional expert scientists at other research organisations. NCEO capabilities sit alongside two scientific facilities and a data centre. The NCEO Directorate is at the University of Leicester, co-located with NCEO Director Professor John Remedios, and at the University of Reading, Imperial College and King’s College London.