German contribution to the Group on Earth Observations and the establishment of the Global Earth Observation System of Systems

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News

The position of the Director of the GEO Secretariat has been advertised. Qualified applicants may submit their applications before September 20th, 2011 to WMO.

The GEO Secretariat presented version 1 of the GEO Work Plan 2012-2015. During the "official consultation" GEO Member States and Contributing Organizations will comment this version until 31.08.2011. The next version will be published in October, to be accepted by the 8th GEO Plenary Session (November 15.-16., 2011).

A Work Plan Symposium was organized by the GEO Secretariat from May 4-6, 2011. Participants discussed version 0 of the GEO Work Plan and made recommendations for the development of version 1.

The national GEO Group (D-GEO) presented their 3rd D-GEO Progress Report in early April 2011. The report describes key national activities of GEOSS implementation. It also explains the D-GEO Work Plan 2011, which continues current activities and focuses broad approaches into specific activities.

The GEO Secretariat has presented the first draft ("version 0") of the next GEO Work Plan 2012-2015. Compared to the present Work Plan (2009-2011) the number of Tasks has been reduced markedly. This aims at encouraging inter-disciplinary activities, but should also aid an effective monitoring of GEOSS implementation. The approach towards work plan management, i.e. the role of the GEO Secretariat and GEO Committees in GEOSS implementation, has also changed markedly.
The new Work Plan will now be commented and modified step-by-step until it will be accepted by GEO Plenary late 2011. The Work Plan Symposium, planned for May 04th-06th (Geneva), is the primary opportunity for the broader community to engage in the development of the next Work Plan.

The seventh GEO Plenary Session (GEO-VII) was held with a ministerial segment in Beijing, China on November 3rd and 4th 2010.
Central themes of discussion were a Data Sharing Action Plan), revised Strategic Targets for GEOSs and the results of a mid-term evaluation of GEOSS implementation. The Ministerial Summit adopted a Beijing Declaration. This confirms the Strategic Targets and starts looking towards developing GEO in the time beyond 1015. The next Plenary Session will be held in Turkey late 2011. The next ministerial meeting is expected in 2013.

Doug Nebert (USGS) prepared a 15' web-based presentation on the development and implementation of the GEOSS Common Infrastructure (GCI). It includes detailed instructions on how to register Components or Services in the GCI. The presentation remains available as a web-stream.

A D-GEO Information Day took place at the Projektträgers Jülich, Berlin, on June 24th, 2010. The event was targeted at interested persons from the German Project Management Agencies and other national research funding agencies.