Introduction
Earth Observations (EO) have become essential for understanding our changing planet, driving scientific innovation, and responding effectively to global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and sustainable development. Today, EO data is at the heart of Earth system science, enabling novel research, discoveries, and actionable insights.
Space missions like ESA’s Earth Explorers and the EU’s Copernicus Programme continually produce an unprecedented volume of data and observations, leveraging state-of-the-art instruments aboard advanced satellites. These missions deliver continuous, long-term global data records that help scientists comprehend the vast spatio-temporal complexity of Earth’s systems—monitoring interactions between oceans, atmosphere, cryosphere, land, and biosphere—and providing critical evidence of climate impacts on ecosystems and human society.
The availability of extensive Earth Observation datasets from space agencies, particularly under open access policies championed by ESA, NASA, EU, and others, has revolutionized scientific practice. Datasets from missions such as Landsat, Sentinel-2, Sentinel-5P, MODIS, and others provide openly accessible data, empowering researchers and data scientists globally to monitor natural resources, track urbanization, detect deforestation, measure air quality, and much more. Researchers, developers, and citizen scientists typically explore, visualize, and access this open EO data through tools provided by various institutions such as the Copernicus Browser, Sentinel Hub EO Browser, NASA Worldview, and others – to use them for their own scientific analyses, applications, and workflows.
This freely available data fuels collaboration across scientific teams and accelerates innovation, allowing researchers and developers from various institutions and disciplines to rapidly advance our understanding of the Earth and its changing climate.
However, open data alone is insufficient to bridge our current knowledge gaps in the Earth sciences, and to drive science-driven policy action. Significant challenges persist, including accurately characterizing and forecasting changes in global water, carbon, and energy cycles, or identifying critical tipping points within vulnerable ecosystems and quantifying their resilience. Moreover, this vast pool of openly available EO data also represents a tremendous opportunity for the private sector, however there is a major up-front R&D investment in learning how to analyse or otherwise turn it from data to actionable intelligence. Lowering the barrier to use this data will unlock a new wave of space data innovation – enabling startups, SMEs, and technology companies to leverage EO in new products and services.
Introducing Open Science
Addressing these challenges demands coordinated scientific efforts, broad sharing of knowledge, data and methods, and iterative development of models and analysis tools. In this context, Open Science has emerged as a vital enabler of sustained collaboration among global communities of researchers and innovative enterprises.
Open Science is just Science done right. It’s a cultural change to traditional science that offers unique opportunities through transparency and openness.
Its principles encompass open access publications, open methodologies, sharing of preprints, transparency through open peer review, and educational resources. Key to the success of Open Science is (1) sharing and collaboration over code, following open-source practices and, (2) sharing FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) input and scientific output data.
(Source: https://github.com/EO-College/cubes-and-clouds/blob/1c9eee74c92c8c3079ab77b8d6a61db74a8c9e18/lectures/1.3_openscience/assets/1.3_opensciencejourney.gif)
Additionally, Open Science emphasizes citizen engagement, encouraging participation from the broader public in scientific research. In recent years, the movement has gained critical momentum with policies and recommendations from international bodies such as UNESCO, OECD, and the European Commission supporting and advocating for Open Science, aiming to make scientific processes more transparent, reproducible, inclusive, and accessible to everyone.
The recent cloud computing revolution has significantly amplified the reach and potential of Open Science. It has democratized access to computational resources previously restricted to a few well-funded institutions. Now, developers, researchers, and data scientists worldwide can easily discover, access, and analyze large-scale EO datasets on-demand via the cloud. They can also integrate them directly into complex scientific workflows, running advanced analyses and simulations right next to the source data—thanks to scalable, cloud-native EO platforms.
Together, the principles of Open Science combined with advanced cloud computing infrastructure form the backbone of a new paradigm—“Earth Action.” This paradigm seeks to leverage scientific knowledge and openly available data to address global environmental and societal challenges proactively.
Evolving from Open Data to Open Science
Space agencies globally are increasingly embracing this vision, shifting from merely offering open data towards embedding comprehensive Open Science practices throughout their programs. The European Space Agency (ESA) has been a leader in this area, clearly outlining its vision for EO Open Science and Innovation. ESA’s structured framework embeds Open Science into all stages of Earth Observation research, from data generation and distribution to knowledge creation and dissemination.
European Space Agency (ESA), Earth Science in Action for Tomorrow’s World: Earth Observation Science Strategy, ESA, Oct. 2024, 42 pp.
ESA’s recent initiatives exemplify this transformation, notably through platforms such as EarthCODE, designed explicitly for scientific collaboration and open innovation. EarthCODE provides scientists and developers with integrated tools, datasets, training resources, and reusable workflows, facilitating transparent, reproducible research across institutions, disciplines, and borders.
But ESA is not alone in its pursuit of Open Science. Multiple initiatives by other institutions worldwide are similarly driving the transition from open data to full Open Science ecosystems such as the UK Data Hub, NASA’s Veda, or Germany’s nfdi4Earth. Together, these global efforts create an interconnected ecosystem of Open Science resources, platforms, and communities, significantly amplifying scientific potential and societal impact
Through EO Open Science researchers increase the visibility, reproducibility, and impact of their work. It empowers developers and businesses to create new innovative solutions addressing environmental challenges. Ultimately, adopting openness accelerates our collective response to global challenges, fostering sustainable solutions and a more resilient future.
About the author
Dean Summers
Founder, Director of Engineering Lampata
Dean is a dynamic engineer and entrepreneur with international experience across the UK, EU, and Middle East; Founder of Lampata, a cloud-native spatial systems and AI consultancy based in Cambridge. With his strong background in data science, geo-spatial, software architecture, cloud-native, and cybersecurity, he has worked extensively with FTSE 250 senior stakeholders to align technology strategies with business objectives, bridging the gap between business goals and their tech solutions. As the Director of Engineering at Lampata, he provides strategic technical leadership to enterprises, space agencies, and governments, solving critical IT problems with distributed, large-scale, open-source systems and platforms. Dean and his team are active in the open-source community and contribute to initiatives like Pangeo, PySal, and others.
