VITO (Flemish Institute for Technological Research) is a leading European independent research and consultancy centre in the areas of cleantech and sustainable development, elaborating solutions for the large societal challenges of today. Sustainable chemistry, energy, health, materials management and land use: these are the five topics VITO focuses on. These topics have been set out in five research programmes. They offer an answer to the challenges that mankind and society are confronted with today and in the future.Each programme builds up a strong base of knowledge and skill, with added value for industry and society. The result is new and innovative research and a comprehensive range of scientific services. The remote sensing unit contributes to the VITO overall mission and objectives by developing innovative remote sensing systems as a solution to the growing need for information about the environment.
VITO's Remote Sensing Department has years of experience in various earth observation activities. With over 80 employees, we provide end-to -end Remote Sensing solutions. VITO Remote Sensing is specialized in the monitoring of the natural environment at local to global scales by means of space- and airborne sensors. Activities focus on the processing, archiving and delivery of EO data and the development of applications for the treatment of long time series of global data with low and medium resolution, accompanied with high resolution and hyperspectral datasets.
VITO remote sensing coordinates TerrA-P as well as leading and contributing to several work packages, including requirements definition, software implementation, algorithm evaluation and recommendations and roadmap.
Imperial College London (ICL) is a leading research institution, specialized in science, engineering, medicine and business, that consistently ranks among the world’s best universities. ICL has recently launched the Grand Challenges in Ecosystems and the Environment (www.imperial.ac.uk/ecosystems-and-environment/) research initiative to strengthen its capacity in the multidisciplinary field of research where this project is situated. ICL maintains multiple links to non-academic sectors, including the AXA Research Fund, who support the chair held by project PI Colin Prentice (www.axa-research.org/en/projects/colin-prentice). The develpment of simple diagnostic models of terrestrial biosphere processes, linked to remote sensing, is one of the explicit goals of this AXA chair programme. With the Grantham Institute as an additional focus for interdisciplinary climate research (www.imperial.ac.uk/grantham/), ICL offers a unique, creative environment for outreach, science dissemination, policy advice and links with innovators in industry.
ICL develops the primary production model in TerrA-P. The ICL team is responsible for the implementation of the point model, and is contributing to the requirements definition and the recommendations and roadmap.
For further information: www.imperial.ac.uk/people/c.prentice
The University of Antwerp is a publicly funded and fully accredited Belgian university. It is characterised by its high standards in education, internationally competitive research and entrepreneurial approach.
The Research Group of Plant and Vegetation Ecology (PLECO) at the University of Antwerp is a very large (>50 members; >40 scientists) and highly productive (>50 manuscripts on Web of Knowledge per year); annual budget of 6 M€) group. One of its key areas of expertise is gross and net productivity by terrestrial ecosystems.
The University of Antwerp leads the validation of the production data sets. The also contribute to the requirements definition and the recommendations and roadmap.
