UK Joint GEO/CEOS Office
The UK’s Joint GEO/CEOS Office is hosted by NCEO, on behalf of the UK Earth Observation community, to interface to two major international initiatives:
GEO is a voluntary partnership of governments and organisations working towards a future wherein decisions and actions for the benefit of humankind are informed by coordinated, comprehensive and sustained EO and information. GEO leads the Global Earth Observation System of Systems (GEOSS) data portal. The GEOSS Portal is an online map-based user interface that allows users to discover and access Earth observation data and resources from different providers from all over the world.
CEOS is a mechanism to coordinate civil space-based EO programmes and promote data exchange for society’s benefit, and to inform decision-making to secure a prosperous and sustainable future for humankind.
NCEO works with Defra and the UK Space Agency to increase the visibility of GEO to the UK Earth Observation community, facilitating and coordinating the UK’s inputs to GEOSS. We disseminate information about CEOS and GEO activities and get community feedback, and host GEO and CEOS events in the UK.
The joint GEO/CEOS office is funded by Defra, NERC/NCEO, and the UK Space Agency.
- Upcoming GEO and CEOS events
- GEO: key documents and progress reporting
- Find UK Joint GEO/CEOS Office Contacts
Upcoming GEO and CEOS events
June 2023
GEO Symposium 2023, 13-14 June 2023, Geneva, Switzerland
October 2023
2023 SIT Technical Workshop, 17-19 October 2023, ESA/ESRIN
November 2023
GEO Week and the Ministerial Summit 2023, 6-10 Nov 2023, Cape Town, South Africa
GEO-19 Plenary, 8-9 Nov 2023, Cape Town, South Africa
CEOS 37th Plenary, 14-17 November 2023, Chiang Rai, Thailand
April 2024
SIT-39, 9-11 April 2024, Tokyo area, Japan
GEO: key documents and progress reporting
GEO Member Survey on the use of EO for SDG reporting
In 2018 GEO surveyed Member countries for insight into the use of Earth Observation in SDG reporting. The summary report Uses of Earth Observation Data for SDG analysis and reporting by GEO Member Countries is based on responses from a total of 72 individual responses, including 21 partially completed.
GEO 2023-2025 Work Programme
Each GEO Work Programme covers a fixed three-year period. The latest programme was approved by the GEO-18 Plenary in Ghana on 3 November 2022 and contains descriptions of GEO Flagships, Initiatives, Pilot Initiatives and Regional GEOs. Download the full programme and summary document from the GEO website.
GEO Post-2025 Strategy
GEO Post-2025 Working Group develops strategic recommendations for the future evolution of GEO, which will be made available in September 2023 to serve as an information basis for discussions on the renewal of the GEO mandate and the GEO Plenary 19 and the Ministerial Summit in 2023. The Working Group invited feedback on the interim report as part of ongoing community engagement and UK comments and observations. Download the UK Comments and Observations on the Interim Report of the Post-2025 Working Group from the GEO website.
GEO and data sharing
The joint UK GEO/CEOS Office has supported work to share metadata for UK EO datasets stored on data.gov.uk to the GEOSS data portal. 23,458 UK metadata records are being harvested to the GEOSS data portal, including numerous NCEO datasets available on CEDA. These records are shared as Open Data by default and are available as part of the GEOSS Data Collection of Open Resources for Everyone (Data-CORE).
We announced our contributions to data-sharing and GFOI at the GEO plenary meeting held in St Petersburg 9-10th November 2016: here is the link to the UK GEO plenary statement: UK Statement GEO XIII_final
The UK’s contribution to sharing metadata on the GEOSS data portal was announced in a press notice: UK Joint GEO/CEOS Office press notice released by Defra, 10th November 2016.
About us
Defra supplies the UK policy lead for GEO; NCEO provides the science lead for GEO on behalf of NERC; the UK Space Agency provides the UK space link for GEO and interfaces to the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS).
GEO/CEOS People
Joint GEO/CEOS Directorate
Professor John Remedios, GEO/CEOS Principal and Director of GEO/CEOS Office, Director NCEO, University of Leicester
Svetlana Zolotikova, NCEO International Project Coordinator, UK GEO/CEOS Office Manager, NCEO, University of Leicester
Group on Earth Observations (GEO)
Dr Robert Bradburne, UK Principal for GEO, Deputy Chief Scientific Adviser, Defra
Dr Iain Woodhouse, UK rep for GEO Capacity Development Working Group (GEO CD-WG), University of Edinburgh
Professor Stuart Marsh, UK Programme Board member for GEO, UK rep for GEO Disaster Risk Reduction Working Group (GEO DRR-WG), University of Nottingham
Matthew Foote, UK Programme Board member for GEO, WTW
Dr Nathalie Pettorelli, UK Programme Board member for GEO, Zoological Society of London
Professor Emily Black, UK rep for GEOGLAM, University of Reading (GEOGLAM is a GEO Flagship Initiative)
Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)
Dr Beth Greenaway, CEOS Principal, Head of Earth Observation, UK Space Agency
Dan Wicks, CEOS Land Surface Imaging Virtual Constellation, CEOS Ad Hoc Team on Future Data Access & Analysis Architectures, Satellite Applications Catapult
Dr Nigel Fox, CEOS Working Group on Calibration & Validation, National Physical Laboratory
Dr Esther Conway, CEOS Working Group on Information Systems & Services, NCEO-CEDA
Professor Paul Palmer, CEOS Atmospheric Composition Virtual Constellation; GHG Subgroup of the CEOS WG Climate; NCEO-University of Edinburgh
Dr Gareth Roberts, CEOS Working Group on Calibration & Validation Land Product Validation sub-group: Active Fire Burn Area, University of Southampton
Professor Mat Disney, CEOS Working Group on Calibration & Validation Land Product Validation sub-group: Biomass, NCEO-University College London
Professor Jadu Dash, CEOS Working Group on Calibration & Validation Land Product Validation sub-group: Plant Phenology, University of Southampton