pdf EOAG Action Group Report 2022

Earth Observation Action Group (EOAG) 2020-22 Report

Action Group of the Physical Sciences Group

Report Author: Anna Hogg (UK)

Summary of activities from 2020-22

With Covid it hasn’t been possible to meet as usual, so plans have been much slower as a result. There isn’t budget in the AG for the committee to travel, so we were relying on travel to existing meetings that could bolt a side meeting onto. As we previously reported the first major opportunity to hold a SCAR wide EOAG meeting was at the Hobart meeting that was cancelled due to coronavirus. It was a real blow not to be able to have a full EOAG meeting during this event.

The need for EOAG has grown since the pandemic as other space agency EO acquisition coordination groups have also not been able to meet since the pandemic. Anna discussed a month ago with the new Earth Sciences Director at the International Space Science Institute (ISSI) that there would be a great opportunity to combine the SCAR EOAG into a new international working group (which would be funded by ISSI for a 3 year period). They were very supportive of this as the director was previously a senior colleague at the European Space Agency (ESA) with links to other space agencies world-wide. The application period for new working group proposals is October 2022. This would be a tremendous outcome for SCAR if the application is successful as it will enable us to leverage the political commitment that SCAR has to bring international scientists together to tackle important topics, with the funding and impartiality that ISSI provides. Anna Hogg will lead this application this year (2022).