The Horizon Europe Space Research call for 2024, managed by the European Health and Digital Executive Agency (HaDEA), concluded on March 21, 2024, receiving 28 proposals requesting a total EU contribution of approximately €90.5 million.
Following evaluations, grant agreements have been finalized with 10 selected projects, which will collectively receive €30.3 million in EU funding. These initiatives aim to advance the Copernicus program and develop critical space technologies to enhance the EU’s strategic autonomy.
The AI4COPSEC project is among the 10 funded projects, in the “Copernicus for Security” category. AI4COPSEC intends to demonstrate the potential of advanced machine learning and geospatial artificial intelligence models to enhance existing Copernicus products and services, such as oil spill response and illegal fishing alerts. It also plans to propose new services to support search-and-rescue operations and detect irregular migration.
Another project, THEIA, addresses challenges like population displacement due to conflicts and climate change by integrating data fusion, processing, and analysis.
Two projects focus on the “Copernicus for Land and Water” theme. The CLMS-Cities project seeks to enhance the Copernicus Land Monitoring Service by introducing new elements and products that can be integrated into local land planning decisions, thereby supporting the EU’s “Climate-Neutral and Smart Cities” mission. Another project, TERRA, aims to develop an intelligent platform for climate services, integrating multiple Copernicus services with advanced technologies to provide solutions for coastline detection, erosion prediction, flood risk assessment, water pollution assessment, and coastline modeling.
Additionally, several projects aim to reduce the EU’s dependence on critical space technologies. For instance, the ESGAN project targets the development of 200V GaN power transistors suitable for space applications, exploiting the advantages of reduced mass and increased efficiency. The HALLOA project is developing key critical sub-systems for a hybrid laser with EU components, which are essential for Lidar instrumentation for CO₂ and H₂O monitoring. The PUMA project focuses on designing and implementing the first European space-grade FPGA in advanced technology nodes, enhancing the EU’s capacity to operate independently in space.
These selected projects are poised to significantly strengthen the evolution of Copernicus, the Earth observation component of the EU Space Programme, and foster innovative developments aligned with other EU Space Research priorities, including the development of critical space technologies for EU non-dependence.
