FabSpace 2.0: Universities Fostering Open Innovation Enabled by Earth Observation and Geo-spatial Information

The investments made by the European Commission, the European Space Agency and the Member States in the Earth Observation downstream sector are fostering the development and operationalization of innovative applications and several governmental and industrial customers are progressively adopting them within e-Government and Industry 4.0 initiatives. In this context universities must endorse a new role beyond knowledge providers: they need to become cocreators of innovations and key actors along the Science 2.0 principles. FabSpace 2.0 is a project funded under the H2020 EU Programme that aims at stimulating open-innovation in Earth Observation (EO) and Geo-spatial Information (GI) with a catalysing role of universities that will bring together students, researchers, SMEs, civil society organizations, corporates and public authorities to solve everyday challenges. To do this, the project sets-up and operates opens spaces for innovation to create innovative applications and services using EO data and GI technologies. To have a cross exchange of competences and best practices, a European network of six founder FabSpaces has been established in France, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Italy and Poland and the extension of the network to fourteen new FabSpaces, at European and International level, has been implemented through a call for expression of interest. This paper presents the FabSpace 2.0 project, describes the approach followed to foster open innovation enabled by EO and GI and provides a first set of outcomes and results achieved in the first two years of project execution.