Recently, GEO adopted the new 2012-2015 Work Plan (see http://www.earthobservations.org/geoss_imp.php), reflecting the conclusions of the GEO-VII Plenary, Beijing Declaration, and GEOSS Mid-Term Evaluation. It differs from the previous 2009-2011 Work Plan in four main ways: (i) it derives directly from the GEOSS Strategic Targets; (ii) it groups Tasks into three thematic parts (rather than two as before); (iii) it features a streamlined number of Tasks; and (iv) it proposes an improved Work Plan management structure.

The Work Plan has been organized into three major parts to match the key objectives outlined by the GEO-VII Plenary and to provide a clear overview of GEO activities. Part 1 on “Infrastructure” features the physical cross-cutting components of an operational and sustainable GEOSS, including interoperable observing, modelling and dissemination systems. Part 2 on “Institutions and Development” describes “GEO at work” and the community’s efforts to ensure that GEOSS is sustainable, relevant and widely used; it focuses on reinforcing data sharing, resource mobilization, capacity development, user engagement and science and technology integration. Part 3 on “Information for Societal Benefits” focuses on the information, tools and end-to-end systems that should be available through GEOSS to support decision-making across the nine Societal Benefit Areas.

Four Implementation Groups would oversee the “Institutions and Development” Tasks: one on “Data Sharing” (Task ID-01), one on “Capacity Building” (Task ID-02), one on Science and Technology (Task ID-03), and one on User Engagement (Task ID-04). EGIDA (see http://www.egida-project.eu/), a project funded by the European Commission by the DG Research-Env, has a leading role in Europe in contributing to the relevant GEO Work Plan Tasks, in linking of national activities to GEOSS, and in bringing GEOSS to the scientific communities. It has been a major resource for the Science and Technology roadmap implementation (Task ID-03).

The Splinter meeting will consist of two parts with one giving a broader overview on the relevance of GEOSS for science and technology (and the EGIDA contribution to this), and a second one focusing in more detail on data quality, labeling, and citation -as interconnected topics.