Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery

Credit: European Union, Copernicus Sentinel-3 imagery

Four Copernicus calls for Horizon Research & Innovation Actions are currently accepting applications, and seven more calls have been announced for 2024, with the calls set to open in winter 2023. This is a great opportunity to familiarize yourself with the calls and begin preparing your applications. Space Iceland has partnered with the National Land Survey of Iceland to encourage the use of Copernicus data in Iceland and is available to assist with the application process and cluster for upcoming projects and tenders. If you are an institution, company, or individual interested in learning more and receiving assistance, please do not hesitate to contact our Copernicus Ambassador.

Open calls:

EEA/DIS/R0/23/001 – Copernicus Land Monitoring Service – Pan European Component – Production and Validation of High Resolution Water, Snow, and Ice (Two Lots) (Tender)

Deadline date: 10 April 2023

The purpose of this call for tenders is to establish two framework contracts (two lots) with two economic operators covering the following two tasks:Lot 1: production: high resolution water, snow, and ice;Lot 2: validation: high resolution water, snow, and ice.

Copernicus Global Land Cover and Tropical Forest Mapping and Monitoring (Tender)

Deadline date: 4 May 2023

The Copernicus Global Land Service will procure a dynamic global land surface characterization, global annual land cover mapping and tropical forest monitoring products at 10m resolution. The procurement will ensure the continuity of the production of the Global Land Cover map collection, the provision of a continuous dynamic generation of land surface and cover characteristics on sub-annual and annual basis and the development and implementation of a tropical forest monitoring component.

Copernicus Global Land Operations – biophysical variables (Tender)

Deadline date: 5 May 2023

Procurement under the Copernicus Programme Regulation ((EU)2021/696) on the implementation of the Copernicus Land Service global component for the routine generation of Sentinel and EO based biophysical variables in the field of vegetation, energy, cryosphere and hydrosphere

Framework service contract for Copernicus emergency management service (CEMS) risk and recovery, mapping (RRM) tailor-made products (FLEX) (Tender)

Deadline date: 5 May 2023

The 4th phase of the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) will be covered by framework contracts with standardized RRM products and a framework contract with flexible products (so called FLEX). The service consists of the on-demand provision of geospatial information. This information supports emergency management activities not related to the immediate response phase. this service addresses prevention, preparedness, disaster risk reduction and/or recovery phases.

Forthcoming Tenders and Grant opportunities:

Copernicus for Security (Grant)

Opening date: 21 November 2023

Deadline date: 20 February 2024

Project results are expected to contribute to the following objectives:

  • Enhanced fitness of the current services to better respond to evolving policy and user requirements.
  • Enlargement of current service scope through the inclusion of new, complementary elements and extended communities of users.
  • Significant technological enhancement in detection capabilities, timely access to data or delivery of information, narrowing the gap between capabilities and the more stringent security observation requirements.
  • Significant improvement in integration of non-space data along end-user intelligence supply chains, bringing added value at operational level also at regional at local levels, or in support to field campaigns.
  • Development of processing chain(s) to handle an increasing volume of satellite data, keeping abreast with technology developments and include new paradigms in data fusion, processing, automation, as well as added-value information access and visualisation.
  • Integration of the Geospatial Artificial Intelligence (GeoAI) and Earth Observation data analytics with a variety of other application-specific data sources like data from remote sensors accessed through IOT, as well as crow-sourced data, high velocity transnational data and social media posts.

Copernicus Security Services today provide a valuable contribution to civil security, law enforcement operations and crisis management in Europe as well as in support of its external actions. Technology and space capacities have been evolving significantly, creating opportunities for increased outreach across a broader spectrum of related applications.

Copernicus for Land and Water (Grant)

Opening date: 21 November 2023

Deadline date: 20 February 2024

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

  • Enhanced quality and efficiency of the Copernicus Land Monitoring service to respond respectively to several Green Deal policy and/or user requirements, including those related to the EU mission: “Climate neutral and smart cities”, and to technological developments.
  • Development of efficient and reliable new products chains, calling for new paradigms in data fusion, data processing and data visualisation essential for the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service to handle more high-volume satellite data sets and product sets. The baseline is to preserve continuity of what has been achieved while keeping the service modern and attractive.
  • Development of efficient and reliable integrated products chains, calling with a holistic approach for better land use planning and hydrological monitoring and forecasting, combining and assimilating the current Copernicus service products, in particular the existing continental and global scale hydrological monitoring and forecasting systems of the Copernicus Emergency Management and Climate Change services (CEMS & C3S), and the potential development of new state of the art products complementing the existing ones.
  • Development of a common leading-edge approach across services, and in the area of hydrological modelling serving the interests of various applications including agriculture, navigation, energy, flood prevention, and considering also hydrological climate change monitoring, assimilation of hydrological fluxes at the land-sea interface in ocean models, inland water river monitoring and forecasting (short term forecasting and climate monitoring). The development should consider cross services approaches and all relevant Copernicus service products, in particular the existing continental and global scale hydrological monitoring and forecasting systems of the Copernicus Emergency Management and Climate Change services (CEMS & C3S).
  • Development of new algorithms and processing chains (e.g. data fusion, combination, assimilation, into monitoring and forecasting models) preparing also for the use of the new types of space observation data (being from new Sentinels or other contributing missions) should also be envisaged allowing the implementation of new products or the improvement of existing products.

The projects should take into account the existing services and clearly define to what extent the services will be improved with new elements or products, including the use of enhanced models, algorithms, tools and techniques to generate new product(s). The projects should build, where possible and relevant, on open-source models, tools and datasets already used or produced by the existing Copernicus services.

Copernicus Land and Forest Mapping and Monitoring (Tender)

Opening date: TBA

Deadline date: TBA

The Copernicus Global Land service will procure a dynamic global land surface characterisation, global annual land cover mapping and tropical forest monitoring products at 10 m resolution. The procurement will ensure the continuity of the production of the Global Land Cover map collection, the provision of a continuous dynamic generation of land surface and cover characteristics on sub-annual and annual basis and the development and implementation of a tropical forest monitoring component.

Development of a new website for Copernicus Emergency Management Service – On Demand Mapping (Tender)

Opening date: TBA

Deadline date: TBA

Please note that this is not a call for tenders but a publication announcing the Contracting authority’s intention to publish a future negotiated low or middle value procedure.

This forthcoming procurement regards a web development service, to be hosted in the European Commission IT environment. The current website has been designed almost 10 years ago, we defined new specifications for an enhanced website and aim to its implementation. The website is the main hub for the Copernicus Emergency Management Service (CEMS) Mapping component where users, stakeholders and wide public community have access to all its products and information about the service. The website’s main purposes are: • Publish both Rapid Mapping (RM) and Risk and Recovery Mapping (RRM) activations’ information and products • Offer quick information update services (RSS feeds) • Disseminate news, User Guides and promotional material • Integrate emergency information from other international initiatives • Visualise on interactive maps the location and content of the activations

Develop innovative applications to support the European Green Deal, building on meteorological satellite data (Grant)

Opening date: 17 October 2023

Deadline date: 28 February 2024

Proposals are expected to contribute to all of the following outcomes:

  • Uptake of the newly available environmental information and data at global and regional scale delivered through the Copernicus Sentinels and the EUMETSAT[3] “Meteosat Third Generation (MTG)” and “EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS SG)”;
  • Preparation and implementation of high-quality (novel) satellite data products and applications using the next generation EUMETSAT and Copernicus instruments for the exploitation by advanced physical/chemical/biochemical models, and integrating in-situ data, to improve the implementation and operationalisation of new and advanced services and applications;
  • Demonstrated use of these applications for Earth Systems predictions, long-term climate monitoring (i.e., re-analysis within the Copernicus climate services context) and disaster risk prediction and reduction (e.g., within the framework of the Copernicus Emergency Management service);
  • Exploitation of the European cloud systems (e.g. Copernicus DIAS[4], European Open Science Cloud[5], European Weather Cloud) and a contribution to the Destination Earth initiative[6];
  • Demonstrated use of satellite derived environmental information to advance and improve seamless climate-weather and environmental services in Europe, and potentially beyond.

The successful applications should take up and enhance the development of new environmental information based on the Meteosat Third Generation (MTG) and EUMETSAT Polar System Second Generation (EPS SG)[7]. They should explore pre-operational European services through the exploitation of new Earth Observation (EO), digital infrastructures and modelling capabilities.

Ocean models for seasonal to decadal regional climate impacts and feedbacks (Grant)

Opening date: 17 October 2023

Deadline date: 22 February 2024

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

  • Demonstration of the fit for purpose and configuration of ocean models, for climate change impact assessment in European sea basins and coastal areas, in particular on marine ecosystems;
  • Demonstration of EU basin scale to coastal ocean climate services that support policy implementation and the development of climate adaptation strategies and of a carbon-neutral blue economy (e.g., ocean climate risk services);
  • Development and publication of indicators on ocean status and health, targeted towards territorial decision-makers, complementary to current Global Climate Observing System (GCOS) Essential Climate Variables[3] or Copernicus Ocean State Reports[4];
  • Integration of the developments in the digital perspective, interoperable and/or integrable with Destination Earth and the Digital Twin Ocean;
  • Fostered collaboration between the climate science community and operational oceanography communities (operating ocean services on a sustained way).

A current limitation to climate change projections for EU-basin scale to coastal use comes from an insufficient representation and resolution of basin and coastal ocean dynamics and from an unsatisfactory understanding of the oceanic biogeochemical cycle. Most climate models include the ocean dimension that stops at the regional scale as defined by meteorology and climatology like in CORDEX In parallel, operational oceanography centres develop and operate ocean models (physics, biogeochemistry, sea-ice) for daily ocean forecasting and reanalysis that represent more exhaustively the full ocean dynamics. Methods should help close the gap between current climate projections (global, centennial) on the one hand and existing Copernicus Marine physics and biogeochemical models used for daily ocean forecasting.

Additional activities for the European Partnership for a climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy (Grant)

Opening date: 17 October 2023

Deadline date: 28 February 2024

Expected Outcome:

This topic is for the continuation of the Sustainable Blue Economy Partnership (SBEP), i.e. EU contribution in WP 2023-2024.

The second instalment of the partnership is expected to contribute to all expected outcomes specified in topic HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01-02: European Partnership for a climate-neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy, for continuation and new development of activities.

The objective of this action is to continue to provide support to the European Partnership for a climate-neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy (SBEP) identified in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2021-2024 and first implemented under the topic HORIZON-CL6-2022-GOVERNANCE-01-02: European Partnership for a climate neutral, sustainable and productive Blue Economy, and in particular to fund additional activities (which may also be undertaken by additional partners) in view of its intended scope and duration, and in accordance with Article 24(2) of the Horizon Europe Regulation.

Please see General conditions for applications here

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