THE AGENCY:
The EEA is an Agency of the European Union (EU) and one of the decentralised Community bodies. The EEA aims to support sustainable development and to help achieve significant and measurable improvement in Europe’s environment, through the provision of timely, targeted, relevant and reliable information to policy-making agents and the public.
GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) is the European initiative to establish a European earth observation capacity and is Europe’s main contribution to GEOSS (Global Earth Observation System of Systems). GMES will create information services supporting public and private services for environment and security. Services for land, marine, emergency response, and atmosphere are currently in pilot phase.
An initial operational framework for GMES is set up by Regulation (911/2010) on the European Earth observation programme (GMES) and its initial operations (2011-2013). The Regulation provides for the creation of a GMES programme, associated governance frameworks, and the operational (ie not research – based) implementation of some elements of GMES, including an initial operational land service.
EEA has been identified as the organisation that should plan for the coordination role for the GMES initial operations land service. The implementation of this land service builds on the successful experience by EEA and Eionet with GMES land precursor services 2006-2009, especially Image2006, Corine change layer 2000-2006, and soil sealing. The primary objective of GMES is to meet user needs, thus scope of the land service focuses on priorities defined from consultation with user communities since 2005. The service will consist of four main components which will ensure the continued and improved delivery of key environmental information resources for these user communities. In the future, a user forum, consisting of GMES public sector users, supported by thematic facilitators will advise the Commission on the definition and validation of user requirements. Implementation of GMES services is required to be complementary and consistent with other relevant Community policies, instruments and actions such as Inspire and SEIS.
JOB DESCRIPTION:
Under the responsibility of the Head of GMES Group, reporting to the Head of SES Support Programme, the Project Manager shall coordinate overall GMES land service at EEA in close cooperation with Eionet. The focus of the role will balance the set up of the GMES land service at EEA with the broader coordination of GMES land service to support environmental policy information needs from a global to national perspective. Liaison with external stakeholders and coordinating longer term evolution is a key feature of this role.
The position will entail the following tasks:
- To oversee the initial set up of EEA activities related to the GMES initial operations on land monitoring;
- To organise related data and information services including quality assurance and quality control;
- To cooperate with Eionet, EU institutions and other international organisations in relation to the operation, use and evolution of GMES land services, particularly the Commission services such as DGs ENV, CLIMA, ENTR, REGIO, AGRI, JRC and REA;
- To secure access arrangements for the necessary satellite and in-situ input data;
- To support definition of user requirements as well as uptake of GMES land services by EEA, Eionet and other public bodies;
- To contribute to ensure coordination with and effective contribution to global initiatives, such as GEO-GEOSS;
- To support the evolution of the GIO land service implementation towards a full implementation from 2014 onwards.
