Press Release: Copernicus, 20 years of History!

Baveno, 20 June 2018.

20 years of the Copernicus Programme

Today in Baveno, Italy we celebrate 20 years of the EU Copernicus Programme, the leading provider of Earth observation data across the globe. It all started in 1998 with the Baveno Manifesto - a document proposing the creation of a European environment-monitoring programme. 20 years later and with seven satellites in orbit, Copernicus is a flagship programme of the European Union. It provides six operational services and collects tens of Terabytes of data every day.

Copernicus Programme has an open data policy. A domain which was traditionally reserved for governments, large companies and scientists is thanks to the EU Programme available for free to all citizens.

It provides access to data in six areas: land monitoring, marine monitoring, atmosphere monitoring, climate change, emergency management response and security. It already helps save lives at sea, improves our response to natural disasters, such as earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires or floods, and allows farmers to better manage their crops.

In more concrete terms, Copernicus data and information were used to show the extent and magnitude of damage caused by forest fires (Italy, Spain, Greece, Portugal), earthquakes (Mexico), hurricanes (countries hit by hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria), and floods (Ireland, Germany) and helped rescue teams deal with these natural disasters.

The high resolution data produced by Copernicus are already being used by innovative businesses to create satellite-enabled products and services, creating highly qualified jobs in Europe.

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