WGISS - GEO Way Forward Issue 1.0 Ivan Petiteville WGISS-24, DLR Oberpfaffenhofen Thursday Sep. 18, 2007

Background (1/3) Since 2 years, new orientation of CEOS: main activities focused on the support to GEO CEOS goal: support GEO in coordinating all the space activities related to GEOSS For the 1 st time in CEOS history, CEOS requests the active support of its 3 WGs on identified GEO Tasks (from GEO 2006 WP, & GEO WP)

Background (2/3) Yearly agreement between the CEOS SIT represented by CEOS Executive Officer (CEO) and GEO Secretariat on the GEO tasks: –CEOS Lead & POC –CEOS Lead –CEOS Contributing For the first two years, WGISS has amended / refined that list with CEOS SIT agreement, given its expertise, interests of its members, resources available. Some GEO Tasks have been suppressed, some others have been added. CEOS informed.

Background (3/3) In addition, WGISS has taken some measure: –Structure: nomination of a GEO Coordinator (role allocated to the Vice-Chair) Nomination of WGISS Points of Contacts to interface the GEO Tasks where WGISS is engaged –Process: Refocus activities of Subgroups, Task Teams and Project Teams on well identified GEO activities Updated the WGISS 5-year plan to give some rules for the definitions of the TTs’ objectives and for the creation of new TTs / Projects. Close monitoring of WGISS Contribution Close coordination with CEOS SIT team. Regular reporting from WGISS to CEOS

Current status 14 GEO tasks supported at various level WGISS Contribution praised by GEO Director during last CEOS Plenary (Nov. 06) About 1/3 of GEOSS components are registered as CEOS ones. After two years of support to GEO, the overall WGISS contribution is rather satisfactory given the lack of resources. As raised a few times during WGISS-24, there are certainly still areas for improvement. Some lessons learned may be drawn after those 2 years

Way Forward (1/2) Initiate a thinking process to improve both the WGISS structure & working process taking into account: –the agreements between CEOS SIT and GEO Secretariat –the resources available today versus the resources that would be needed –the interests of the WGISS participants / agencies

Way Forward (2/2) Thinking process requires: –Good knowledge of GEO and CEOS SIT –Good knowledge of WGISS capabilities, experience and resources –Small team to arrive quickly to useful conclusions and recommendations (e.g. at next WGISS-25)

Strategy Team Composition Team Leader: –Martha as incoming Chair Members: –2 Subgroup Chairs –1 representative of Technology Teams (e.g. Lyn) –1 representative of Projects Teams (e.g. Wyn ) –1 member of current CEOS SIT Team (Ivan) –1 member of future CEOS SIT Team (Ken)