Spotlight speeches 1

Pierre Philippe Mathieu – ESA

What if the view from space could help us act before a hazard becomes a disaster?

Earth Observation (EO) is giving us a richer record of our changing planet. Artificial intelligence (AI) is opening new ways to explore that record, detect emerging threats and turn complex observations into information people can use. Yet the distance between a powerful technology and an effective response remains significant.

Resilience from Space follows the journey from observing the Earth to building the capacity to act. Through examples of flood impacts, wildfire monitoring and connected field operations, the keynote explores how AI, satellite imagery, drones, sensors and resilient communications can be brought together around practical decisions. It looks at the frontier of geospatial foundation models and processing closer to the sensor, while asking what it takes to make these tools trustworthy and useful beyond specialist teams. Space Resilience Nodes (SRNs) provide the operational direction: connecting users, industry and public institutions, integrating services through a common Reference Framework, and building capability through shared demonstrations and learning. The next breakthrough is not simply a better image or a smarter model. It is the ability to turn what we know about the planet into coordinated action that protects people.

Esther Plomp – UA 

Implementation of open science practices remains inconsistent, with research evaluation remaining focused on traditional metrics and outputs. Treating openness as optional risks reproducing inequalities across the research ecosystem. Universities and researchers with fewer financial, institutional, and infrastructural resources are less able to contribute to, benefit from, and shape open science practices. Drawing on the preliminary results of a case study on The Turing Way (a community and book focusing on reproducible, ethical and collaborative data science), this contribution examines how financial compensation influences participation and community dynamics. Sustainable implementation of open science practices requires institutional and long-term financial support, rather than relying on unequal capacities for voluntary participation or short-term project-based investments.