Toward a new Academic Curriculum in Eart’s Observations from Space.

The gap between the demand and supply of specific skills in the field of Earth Observation from Space has been recognized even by the European Commission as one of the main limiting factors for the development of the aerospace sector and, in particular, for the insufficient growth of the European market for products and services based on EO techniques. The lack of a university curriculum covering the entire value chain — from the design of platforms and sensors to the development of systems, applications, and services based on the processing of EO data from space — represents today still a significant gap. Companies operating in the sector have repeatedly expressed difficulty in finding personnel with such expertise, capable of responding and actively anticipating future market demands in a continuously evolving field like Earth Observation applications from space. Following the guidelines of the EU and leveraging the synergies made possible by the Copernicus Academy Network, a new academic program has been proposed which aims to train professionals with all the fundamental and specialized skills needed for the development of the entire value chain — from the design and operation of remote sensing platforms and instruments to the analysis and interpretation of remote sensing data for the development of advanced applications and services. At present all these skills are already offered, separately, albeit in a disorganized manner and with varying intensity and educational objectives, in multiple University curricula, such as Aerospace Engineering, Environmental Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, Physics, Computer Science, etc. However, there is still no one single University curriculum that combines all the foundational knowledge needed to envision new services and applications of EO from Space, starting from the design of appropriate platforms and tools, rather than solely relying on the existing EO data. To fill this educational gap, has already been recognized as one of the paramount objectives of the Copernicus User Uptake strategy of the European Commission. Actually there is nothing in the European skills catalogue ESCO (European Skills/Competences, Qualifications and Occupations) that alludes to such professional figures. The EO-SAT project funded by the MUR (the Italian Ministry of University and Research) with its new international Master program in "Earth Observations from Space: Advanced Technologies and Applications (EO-SAT), aims to fill this gap by training new professional figures who will be able to find employment in companies operating in the aerospace sector and in ICT, as well as in public administrations. In this paper the long lasting preparation efforts - which include the unique Body of Knowledge for Earth Observation and GIS developed within the EO4GEO project – as well as the main results achieved after the first year of the Master implementation will be presented and discussed.