Government and Space Agencies
Working with the public sector to fast-track progress
NCEO works with public sector agencies and government to fast-track progress in the use of environmental data alongside Earth Observation satellite technology to assist policymakers.
NCEO works closely with various government departments including DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs) through support of its EO Centre of Excellence, DSIT (Department for Innovation, Science and Technology) on climate data for EO, the space sector and metrology programmes.
The public sector use of Earth observation data is large and increasing, for a range of environmental services, from weather forecasting to analysis of atmospheric composition to forestry and land use change. NCEO is playing a proactive role assisting policymakers and their agencies in their use of Earth observation for a range of outcomes:
- Evidence-based policymaking for environmental decision-making;
- Developing monitoring to evaluate and deliver policy goals;
- Rapid response to major environmental events
NCEO has supported government in obtaining expert inputs on key sectors, such as agriculture, organising workshops on Earth observation applications, and understanding international initiatives to use EO data.
UK science is best served by expert co-operation with the world’s leading space agencies, scientists and missions.
NCEO works with the UK Space Agency, the European Space Agency (ESA), EUMETSAT, the Copernicus programme and NASA to support high quality science..
NCEO has the responsibility, on behalf of NERC, to convey the needs and aspirations of the whole NERC community to the UK Space Agency and to ESA in which the UK invests to support environmental science from space.
We ensure that the NERC community has supported access to satellite data, are able to propose and lead satellite missions for science, and we act as a champion for science in driving space technology development relevant to Earth Observation.
NCEO staff are involved in more than 20 EO instruments with ESA, EUMETSAT, Copernicus, NASA and JAXA.
Space4Climate
Hosted by the National Centre for Earth Observation and chaired by the UK Space Agency, Space4Climate spans government, industry and academia, uniting those with expertise in the development of satellites, analysis and exploitation of data they gather, and production of quality assured global data and climate services.
Our work includes:
- Working with the UK Space Agency to provide a joined-up approach to UK science EO.
- Playing leading roles in ESA missions through ESA’s Mission Advisory Groups, its data processing and science projects and ESA’s Earth Sciences Advisory Committee (ESAC);
- Developing key EO data sets and exploiting them in conjunction with models
- Providing science support for the EC’s Copernicus programme and Sentinel missions: NCEO scientists serve on the Sentinel-3 Mission Performance Centre; NCEO’s CEDA-CEMS is the UK data hub for Sentinel data;
- Working on international space agency collaborations as co-investigators, particularly NASA’s OCO-2 and GPM missions.
EO missions
NCEO scientists are involved with several upcoming satellite missions as Mission Advisory Group members where they have a leading or collaborative role in mission conception, developing sensor properties, system analysis, data analysis, modelling, algorithm development or validation activities.
To find out more about our work visit the Missions Page
GEO/CEOS
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: the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) and the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS)
