The ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence Knowledge Hub will also be created, with the aim to facilitate ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence cross-departmental and external access to state-of-the-art IP.

The ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence Knowledge Hub will include among others:

• a pool of open-source EO tools, algorithms, models, etc., for the EMMENA thematic sectors addressed (description, applicability, methods to access, licensing information, etc.)
• catalogues of descriptive metadata for various regional datasets from in-situ monitoring networks, even outside ECoE’s responsibility
• information on relevant past and ongoing research and innovation projects from local to global level
• a portfolio of best practice examples for the different ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence EO applications, with an outlook for operationalisation and commercialisation
• training material to boost uptake of Copernicus and ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence services to meet operational needs in EMMENA.

Added-value

In a wider perspective, the added-value of the Knowledge Hub instrument and its expected impacts can be summarized as follows:

• Improve upon scientific and technological excellence
• Facilitate the integration and transfer of knowledge
• Establish a critical mass in a given thematic area via networking of researchers with complementary expertise, capacity building and knowledge transfer
• Make common research efforts and provide long term sustainability for ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence, allowing for more significant results
• Facilitate data access and data sharing
• Facilitate proactive studies, sharing standardized and innovative measures in specific disciplines
• Enable long lasting and large base research, tools and methods to capitalize results
• Enhance communication and visibility at European, EMMENA and international level
• Deliver knowledge for policy making, anticipate scientific and technological needs and provide efficient scientific support for strategic and political decision-making in the specific field.

A key element of success for the ERATOSTHENES Centre of Excellence research groups is to meet the “excellence” and “capacity building” criteria. It is essential that research groups will represent the very best expertise in the thematic area in question (“excellence”) and have full research support by the EXCELSIOR partners to enter in each thematic field, in order to develop skills and participate in local, EMMENA, European and international cooperation (“capacity building”). In this context, the hub will allow researchers to join forces, to collaborate and to share expertise, results and data, infrastructures and develop research capacity. The network of researcher groups, once selected, is entitled to develop a joint research plan and to carry out joint integrating and multilateral activities between partners, collaborators and stakeholders. An initial task for the Knowledge Hub members can be to integrate a programme of activities, such as educational, training, research and integrating activities.