Open topic: Develop Earth Intelligence solutions using environmental observations and state-of-the-art AI for sustainable competitiveness and policy making

Expected Outcome:

Project results are expected to contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• AI-based demonstrators for Earth Intelligence tools integrating observations and socio-economic data, for evidence-based decision making. Whereby Earth Intelligence refers to data-driven decision support tools with relevant research-based assessments, data, and options;
• support to national, EU and international environmental policy making or implementation (e.g. European Climate Law, Preparedness Union Strategy, Nature Restoration Regulation, Paris Agreement, or Sustainable Development Goals).

Scope:

Proposals should develop and demonstrate downstream applications for a range of use cases (e.g. weather-, climate-related risks, environmental hazards, or biodiversity reporting) using broadly and intensively Earth Observation and relevant datasets for supporting sustainability and competitiveness through the provision of Earth Intelligence. The aim should be the provision of AI-driven tools and insights to public or private actors, also in the frame of GEO Work Programme Activities, providing observation-based evidence to include preparedness, resilience, sustainability, competitiveness, biodiversity-friendliness or climate neutrality in their operations, decision- or policymaking.

Towards this end, the actions funded under this topic should:

• engage in uptake of Earth Observation (EO) data, including output data from Copernicus, operational European weather satellites, in-situ systems (incl. relevant European Research Infrastructures data), as well as socio-economic and impact datasets;
• follow a user-tailored, co-design approach in the development of the use cases, to provide innovative and competitive, fit-for-purpose information for decision and planning;
• demonstrate explainability, robustness and replicability of the approach;
• convincingly demonstrate, test or validate the developed products and delineate the plans to develop possible future uptake and upscaling at national and regional (incl. beyond EU) level for possible next steps after the research project.

Proposals should build on most recent advances of AI approaches and models trained/integrating information from Earth Observations, as well as digital twins, developments in Destination Earth (e.g. including related projects funded under HORIZON-INFRA-2024-TECH-01-03: New digital twins for Destination Earth) and available EURO HPC and EU AI Factory tools and facilities.

Applicants are also encouraged to identify start-up and scale-ups and seek to develop business models and market opportunities for its products, potentially in cooperation with the project funded under HORIZON-CL6-2026-03-GOVERNANCE-07.

This topic is part of the EC-ESA Earth System Science Initiative, projects should collaborate with related projects funded by ESA’s FuturEO programme and should towards this end include sufficient means and resources for effective coordination.