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Free State of Bavaria bundles GMES skills – IABG to act as spokesperson for the initiative

The aim of the ESA/EU GMES (Global Monitoring for Environment and Security) programme is to pool the large number of sources of earth-monitoring data and to apply these intelligently in applications used in the fields of environmental protection (e.g. climate, natural catastrophes) and security (e.g. combating terrorism, major events). Experts regard the GMES project, which has a current budget allocation of € 2.3 billion, as of equal importance to the Galileo project.

Significant resources of relevant skills in the fields of industry, research, public authorities, associations and organisations are located in Bavaria. The Bavarian Ministry of Economic Affairs, Infrastructure, Transport and Technology therefore launched the GMES bavAIRia, an open network that will now be further developed by the participants working on their own initiative. It is an essential contribution within the framework of its cluster policy with the aim of establishing Bavaria as the driving force in a strong German GMES community. The network partners are utilising the GMES bavAIRia joint initiative to improve their positioning in future public and private GMES markets with a view to maximising value for Bavarian companies and research institutes.

GMES bavAIRia was presented to the press for the first time on 5 October 2006. The presentation was well received, with as many as 140 representatives of press and other interest groups in attendance. The GMES bavAIRia factbook which concisely presents previous and potential future Bavarian GMES contributions, was launched at the same time. The next stage will involve presentation on the European stage in Brussels on 20 November 2006.

GMES touches two thirds of the IABG’s business areas. GMES is essentially an IT project involving data reception, data fusion, geo-referencing, archiving, IT security and standardisation. Alongside InfoCom, GMES involves the IABG business fields of Space, Tansport & Environment as well as Defence & Security: the earth-monitoring data are generated from outer space. The satellites required for this, such as e.g. TerraSAR-X have been qualified in IABG’s space centre. Our business fields Environment (preparation of geodata, simulation of the dispersion of contaminants or radionuclides in the environment etc.) and Security (scenario development, simulation of joint and combined crisis countermeasures, protection of critical infrastructures, integration of control stations etc.) can make a decisive contribution to the development of applications.

In light of the above, it was quite natural for IABG to lending its full support to the Bavarian GMES initiative. The spokesperson for GMES bavAIRia is Thomas Dittler, Executive Director of IABG mbH, who is supported by his deputy, Prof. Stefan Dech, director of the German Remote Sensing Data Centre at the German Aerospace Centre (DLR). The connection with StMWIVT is provided through Assistant Secretary of the Ministry Karl Schumacher, head of the “Applied Research” department.

IABG wishes GMES bavAIRia a successful future.

Further information is available in the <link file:506 _blank download herunterladen der datei>GMES bavAIRia Broschüre.