European Space Agency (ESA), Ministry of Economy of the Republic of Lithuania and the Agency for Science, Innovation and Technology recently announced the call for applications for the ESA Training Course on Radar and Optical Remote Sensing which will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 03 to 07 July 2017.

Initially intended for participants from the European Cooperating States (ECS) and Malta, the scope of the course has now been enlarged to qualified applicants from ESA Member States, and its application deadline extended to 31 May 2017.

Aimed at the promotion and dissemination of Earth Observation (EO) technology in a variety of science and industry fields, the course will provide an introduction to the basis of theory and applications of radar and optical remote sensing. It will include theoretical lectures as well as hands-on computing exercises.

MITA welcomes applications from qualified researchers at MSc (or close to completion) and PhD level, professionals, trainers and educators who use EO technology within their daily work. Candidates from ESA member states will be considered subject to space availability.

A satellite validation international workshop will be held in Plymouth, UK, from 20 to 21 June 2017.

The Copernicus Sentinel Atlantic Meridional Transect Fiducial Reference Measurements workshop will serve as a forum for discussing the performance of Sentinel -1, -2 and -3 at retrieving ocean colour, sea surface temperature and information about upper ocean dynamics in the open ocean and coastal environments.It will identify potential strategies for the validation of Sentinel missions in the future.

The workshop should be beneficial to anyone with an interest in the validation of satellite data; four main themes will be addressed:

• Fiducial Reference Measurement methods and protocols
• Ocean Colour validation
• Sea Surface Temperature validation
• Validation of upper ocean dynamics

The European Space Agency is organising Fringe 2017, the 10th International Workshop on "Advances in the Science and Applications of SAR Interferometry and Sentinel-1 InSAR".

The event will be hosted at the Aalto University in Helsinki, Finland, from 05 to 09 June 2017.

Fringe 2017 is a free workshop, and it is open to ESA Principal Investigators, co-investigators, Sentinel-1 users, scientists, students, representatives from national, European and international space agencies and value adding industries.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising the "Workshop on Vicarious Adjustment". The event will be hosted at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy from 21 to 23 February 2017. The objective of this workshop is to gather experts in the different fields involved in vicarious adjustment and open a wide range debate on the best way to go for future long term vicarious infrastructure.

ESA has launched a project called Fiducial Reference Measurements for Satellite Ocean Colour (FRM4SOC). Led by Tartu Observatory Estonia, FRM4SOC aims to establish and maintain SI traceability of Fiducial Reference Measurements (FRM) for satellite OCR. To ensure the best possible product delivery to users, ESA is organising this international workshop to evaluate the options for future European satellite OCR vicarious adjustment infrastructure for the Sentinel-3 OLCI and Sentinel-2 MSI series.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising the 4th Advanced Course on Radar Polarimetry devoted to train the next generation of Earth Observation (EO) scientists to exploit dual and fully polarimetric data for science and applications development.

The event will be hosted at ESA ESRIN, Frascati (Rome), Italy

The main objectives of the course are to:

• Train the next generation of European and Canadian Principal Investigators (PIs);
• Explain theoretical principles, processing algorithms, data products and their use in applications;
• Introduce available tools and methods for the exploitation of dual polarization and fully polarimetric data;
• Provide first-hand and up-to-date information on the state of the art in Radar Polarimetry and Polarimetric SAR Interferometry.

The 'Remote sensing of fluorescence, photosynthesis and vegetation status' or FLEX 2017 workshop will take place at ESA-ESRIN, in Frascati, Italy from 17 to 19 January 2017.

The Fluorescence Explorer (FLEX) was selected as ESA's 8th Earth Explorer mission to provide information on terrestrial vegetation layer and plant health. FLEX will fly in formation with the Sentinel-3 satellite(s), making use of both Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 observations, with a planned launch being foreseen in the 2022+ timeframe.

This workshop will bring together remote sensing experts and potential users, exploring the new observation capabilities provided by the FLEX, Sentinel-2 and Sentinel-3 missions as well as synergies.

Experts in calibration and validation are invited to participate in the Sentinel-2 Validation Team Meeting (S2VT) at ESA-ESRIN in Frascati, Italy.

The objective of the S2VT is to collect independent validation evidence and experimental data to support the Sentinel-2 mission. The S2VT aims at providing valuable feedback on the mission core products through the experience gained by S2VT members while exploiting Sentinel-2 data. Such recommendations will be taken into consideration by ESA.

In this framework, the S2VT aims at involving world-class expertise and activities, through shared benefit collaboration, that support the implementation of the Sentinel-2 validation activities and ensure the best possible outcomes for the Sentinel-2 mission.

The meeting will be structured around a set of plenary presentations given by expert practitioners working with Sentinel-2 and other similar missions to inform on the lessons learned and priorities based on experience, a poster session of potential cal/val community activities including validation campaigns and methods.

The European Space Agency is organising the fifth workshop on Atmospheric Composition Validation and Calibration activities, providing science and Cal/Val experts with the opportunity to present their latest results of their ongoing research and application developments including evolution aspects of the validation methods for future satellite missions.

The conference will be held at ESRIN in Frascati, Italy, from 18 to 20 October 2016.

During the workshop the status of the recently reprocessed data sets from atmospheric instruments on ERS-2, Envisat and the data sets of Metop and ESA Third Party Missions shall be presented. Evolution aspects of the workshop will focus on ground based validation networks and their development in view of the Sentinel and Earth Explorer (EarthCARE and ADM-Aeolus) operations as well as Fiducial Reference Measurements. Furthermore, the workshop shall provide the opportunity to address evolution aspects of the Sentinel-3/ Sentinel-5 Precursor products for atmospheric applications.

As part of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) programme element, the European Space Agency (ESA) is organising a new advanced Cryosphere Training Course devoted to train the next generation of Earth Observation (EO) scientists to exploit data from ESA and operational EO Missions (e.g. the Sentinels) for science and applications development.

Post graduate, PhD students, post–doctoral research scientists and users from European countries and Canada interested in Cryosphere Remote Sensing and its applications are invited to apply to the 5 day course which will be held at the University of Leeds, UK from 12 to 16 September 2016. Research scientists and students from all other countries are also welcome to apply and participate to the course subject to space availability.

The 2016 European Space Agency Living Planet Symposium was held in Prague, Czech Republic, from 09 to 13 May 2016. It was organised with the support of the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Environment and Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports of the Czech Republic.

The event, which in 2013 attracted 1800 participants, focused on the exploitation of satellite data in various thematic domains: Atmosphere, Oceanography, Cryosphere, Land, Hazards, Climate and Meteorology, Solid Earth/Geodesy, Near-Earth Environment, New Methodologies and Products, Open Science 2.0.

The European Space Agency, in the context of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) programme element, and EO Open Science are organising scientific sessions which will be held at the EGU General Assembly, Vienna, Austria from 17 to 22 April 2016.

The following scientific sessions will take place:

• Sentinel 1 for Science, InSAR results
• Scientific Exploitation of Copernicus Sentinels
• Tools and platforms for making remotely sense data easy to use to geoscientists
• Citizen-empowered science and crowdsourcing in the geosciences.

This conference, jointly organised by ESA, SatCen, and JRC, in collaboration with the IAC, PCTT and the Council of Tenerife, aims to bring together researchers, engineers, and users in the area of Big Data from Space.

The conference shall take place at the Auditorio de Tenerife, in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain, from 15 to 17 March 2016.

The focus is on the whole data lifecycle, ranging from data acquisition by space-borne and ground-based sensors to data management, analysis and exploitation, and on the Infrastructures and Services for Big Data. Contributions are invited to the Big Data from Space Conference on all the aspects related to data volume, velocity, variety, veracity and value.

The Geological Remote Sensing conference will be held at ESA-ESRIN, Frascati, Italy from 9 to 11 December 2015. The conference is jointly organised by ESA and the Geological Remote Sensing Group (GRSG).

The 26th Annual Conference which will focus on a wide range of remote sensing applications, tools, latest developments and sensors.

In collaboration with the Belgian Science Policy Office (BELSPO), the Centre Spatial de Liège (CSL), the Royal Museum of Central Africa (RMCA) and the European Centre for Geodynamics and Seismology (ECGS - Luxembourg) are jointly organising a one-day workshop on satellite radar interferometry (InSAR) and its numerous applications.

Dubbed "The Dark Side of Remote Sensing", the workshop is targeted to non-experts and will take place on Wednesday 9 December 2015 in the premises of BELSPO in Brussels. Register for the workshop on the event website.

In addition, ESA will present the Sentinel-1 mission during the workshop.

The European Space Agency is jointly organising, with GEWEX, a conference on the global water cycle. The conference will take place from 20 to 23 October 2015 at ESA-ESRIN, in Frascati, Italy.

The purpose of this topical conference is to review our knowledge on the water cycle science at different scales in space and time; to advocate for the development of robust satellite geo-information data products to characterise and model the water cycle from global to basin scales; and to foster the improvement of models and data assimilation systems to support local, regional and global water cycle predictions, climate change impacts and development of mitigation strategies in water resources management.

The European Space Agency (ESA) is organising the first Hackathon on community coding of open-source toolboxes for Sentinel missions. The event will be held from 15 to 16 October 2015 in ESRIN, at Frascati in Italy, following the community consultation meeting on Earth Observation Open Science 2.0.

The event will bring together volunteered programmers with the developers of the Sentinel Application Platform (SNAP) to jointly develop a software project supporting the SNAP.

As part of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) programme element, the European Space Agency (ESA) organises each year an advanced Land Training Course devoted to train the next generation of Earth Observation (EO) scientists to exploit data from ESA and operational EO Missions (e.g. Sentinels) for science and applications development.

Post graduate, PhD students, post doctoral research scientists and users from European countries and Canada interested in Land Remote Sensing and its applications are invited to apply to the 5 day course on the subject, which will be held at the University of Agronomic Science and Veterinary Medicine Bucharest, Bucharest, Romania from 14 to 18 September 2015.

As part of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) programme element, the European Space Agency (ESA) is organising an advanced Ocean Remote Sensing Training Course, devoted to train the next generation of Earth Observation (EO) scientists to exploit data from ESA and operational EO Missions for science and applications development.

The course will take place at the French Research Institute for Exploitation of the Sea (IFREMER) in Brest, France, from 07 to 11 September 2015.

The aims of the course are to: Explain theoretical principles of Ocean Colour Radiometry, SST retrievals, SAR and Radar Altimetry principles and applications; Introduce tools and methods for the exploitation of EO satellite data; Stimulate and support the exploitation of the ESA Earth Explorer missions and the Sentinels for ocean remote sensing science and applications.

The European Space Agency organised, in the context of the Scientific Exploitation of Operational Missions (SEOM) element, a conference on the topical theme of atmosphere. The conference was held at the University of Crete (Greece - Heraklion) from 08 to 12 June 2015.

The purpose of this conference was to provide a forum for scientists to present results from their ongoing research using data from past and current atmospheric instruments like ERS-2, Envisat, Metop and ESA Third Party Missions. Furthermore this conference was dedicated to prepare for the scientific exploitation of the Sentinel-5 Precursor mission.