The European Space Agency (ESA), in the framework of EO Science for Society successfully hosted the EO4Health User Forum from 22–25 September 2025 at the headquarters of the World Organisation for Animal Health (WOAH) in Paris. During the session, “Water-Borne Diseases – Users and Stakeholders” Dr. Haris Kontoes, Research Director of the BEYOND Centre at ISAARS/NOA and Coordinator of the EuroGEO Action Groups, presented the EuroGEO initiative underlining its role in advancing Europe’s innovation capacity in Earth Observation sector and its contribution to the implementation of European and global climate policies, including the EU Green Deal.
Dr. Kontoes stressed the significance of Copernicus contributing missions and the plethora of satellite data in developing integrated solutions and services tailored to the needs of end users and decision-makers in regards to European and global policies for climate change, including Green Deal.
He highlighted EuroGEO’s role as the European regional contribution to the Group on Earth Observations (GEO), supporting both the green and digital transitions of the societies, while enabling more balanced regulation and management of economic sectors such as health and energy.
Central to his intervention was EuroGEO’s “3Cs” strategy – Combine, Coordinate, Cooperate aiming to
- Combine Europe’s existing assets,
- Coordinate efforts to reduce duplication and fragmentation,
- Cooperate with stakeholders across the value chain to bridge research, policy, and market, and to build scalable solutions.
Dr. Kontoes also showcased the work of the EuroGEO Action Groups in total, particularly the Disaster Resilience & Health Action Group, emphasizing their achievements in advancing Earth Intelligence. He presented health-related EuroGEO projects with applications ranging from monitoring vector- and water-borne diseases to studying cardiovascular and respiratory conditions, and highlighted the opportunities to expand to new cases of disease outbreak monitoring.
Closing his presentation, Dr. Kontoes invited the health stakeholder community to join the dialogue at the upcoming EuroGEO Workshop 2025 to be held in The Hague of Netherlands (13-15 October 2025), where collaboration to co-design innovative EO-based solutions and making Earth Intelligence tools widely accessible and impactful for the societies will be at the center of the Workshop’s objectives.
📺 Watch the video of the session: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZEOwJ304Xgg
📑 Read the presentation here
ℹ️ More about the event: https://eo4society.esa.int/resources/esa-eo4health-user-forum-2025/
