The Copernicus4Regions initiative explores how other regions in Europe have managed to tackle common challenges, shows the benefits of the Copernicus programme, and therefore invites more regions to be involved in the Copernicus ecosystem and growing community. Moreover, the objective is to inspire other regions to use Copernicus for the benefit of the citizens. This is a joint initiative between the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the Network of European Regions Using Space Technologies (NEREUS): it is managed by NEREUS under a contract from the European Space Agency and funding from the European Union.
This initiative builds on previous cooperation between NEREUS and the European Space Agency, which started in 2012 with a first publication entitled “The Growing Use of GMES across Europe’s Regions”, which compiled 67 user stories at the very beginning of the Programme.
Later, another activity funded by the ESA (named at the time Sentinels4Regions) explored in more details how regions could better exploit Copernicus Sentinels data. The project, leveraging on the experience of Lombardia, Bavaria and Azores, also reflected upon the challenges that are faced by the regional administrations in the uptake of this innovative technology.
In 2017, the Copernicus4Regions initiative was started with an open Call for Articles that resulted in the collection of 99 user-stories having a stronger focus on Public Authorities. The Ever Growing Use of Copernicus across Europe’s Regions publication (2018) provided an updated and realistic snapshot of the use of Copernicus data at the regional level. The activity managed to maintain the momentum and the community informed even during the pandemic (2021-2 webinars). Recently, the Copernicus4Regions Follow-On was signed between ESA and NEREUS to continue and reinvigorate the activities throughout 2028.
Copernicus4Regions involves a wide community of experts, public administrators, scientists and commercial service providers. Through videos, publications,events, and infosessions Copernicus4Regions supports users and public administrations across Europe to share their Copernicus user experiences with high-level decision makers.
