Austria

The United Nations Office for Office for Outer Space Affairs has been organizing a series of workshops and conferences on space law and policy over a decade. This year, the Office will hold the United Nations Conference on Space Law and Policy from 19 to 20 November in Vienna, Austria.

Collaboration at both international and regional levels in the peaceful use of outer space is essential for ensuring that the advantages of space-based technologies are accessible to a broad spectrum of stakeholders, including governmental and non-governmental actors. Such cooperation also supports the expansion and diversification of national space initiatives. Sound policy and legal frameworks—developed and implemented at national, regional, and global levels—are fundamental to enabling countries, especially those still developing, to address sustainable development challenges and achieve their development priorities. As such, there is an ongoing need to reinforce the links between space law…

The Regional Support Offices Meeting 2023 was conducted and organised by UN-SPIDER at the premises of the VIC in Vienna. It was held back-to-back with the 66th Session of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS).

The UN-SPIDER programme currently has 27 Regional Support Offices (RSOs). These RSOs are engaged in supporting activities of UN-SPIDER such as technical advisory support, rapid mapping during emergency response, preparing specific publications and contents for the knowledge portal and contributing to the workshop and conferences.

Every year, UN-SPIDER organizes a meeting with the RSOs to discuss the progress and new activities.
At this year’s meeting, 10 RSOs joined the meeting in person, while 5 participated online. 2 candidates to become an RSO joined the meeting in person as guests.…

Held every three years, the European Space Agency's (ESA) Living Planet Symposia are among the world’s leading events on Earth observation. The upcoming Living Planet Symposium 2025 (LPS25) will focus on the urgent need to transition from observation to climate action and sustainability in light of the growing climate crisis.

This five-day event will serve as a global forum for presenting and discussing the latest scientific advancements and applications based on satellite data. It will highlight the significant contributions that these technologies have already made, and can continue to make, in tackling environmental and societal challenges. The symposium will also showcase innovative products, services, missions, and initiatives aimed at demonstrating how space-based observations can benefit science, society, policymaking, businesses, and the economy alike.

LPS25 will bring together…

The 2023 UN/Austria Symposium "Space for climate action: space applications and technologies for sustainability on Earth" will take place in September 12 - 14 both on-site (Graz, Austria) and online.

This year's symposium, also the 29th edition of this series, will discuss the important contributions of space applications and technologies in tackling the challenges of climate change. The focus of the symposium is to showcase the most recent initiatives, experiences and best practices in mitigating and adapting to climate change and supporting sustainability on Earth. Further to creating awareness of how Member States use space technologies, the symposium will highlight how the space sector is being adapted to reduce its own impact on the climate crisis. The symposium would collect ideas and contributions to define future activities.

To raise awareness of relevant…

More information on the event's website.

Important dates

•     Preliminary programme has been released
•     Deadline for registration to attend online: 10 July 2024

Theme

Space applications and technologies have significant potential to contribute to mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change. Every year there are demonstrations of new innovative technologies and launches of pilot projects that promise to address issues of forest fires, land degradation, floods, droughts, loss of biodiversity, agriculture, disaster management and more. Yet, many of these projects struggle to take off or fail to achieve long-term success. Beyond technical feasibility in the transition from a technical project to a sustainable service is a lack of understanding of how to make it happen.

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The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959. Since its establishment, the Committee's membership has continued to expand. The Committee is the only committee of the General Assembly dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and its role as a forum to monitor and discuss developments related to the exploration and use of outer space has evolved alongside with the technical advancements in space exploration, geopolitical changes, and the evolving use of space science and technology for sustainable development.

The overall mandate of the Committee and its two Subcommittees aims at strengthening the international legal regime governing outer space, resulting in improved conditions for expanding international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. The mandate also specifies that the Committee should supports efforts at the national, regional and global levels,…

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959. Since its establishment, the Committee's membership has continued to expand. The Committee is the only committee of the General Assembly dealing exclusively with international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space, and its role as a forum to monitor and discuss developments related to the exploration and use of outer space has evolved alongside with the technical advancements in space exploration, geopolitical changes, and the evolving use of space science and technology for sustainable development.

The overall mandate of the Committee and its two Subcommittees aims at strengthening the international legal regime governing outer space, resulting in improved conditions for expanding international cooperation in the peaceful uses of outer space. The mandate also specifies that the Committee should supports efforts at the national, regional and global levels,…

The Master in Digital Earth (CDE) is a two year, full-time Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degree (EMJMD) Programme. The study programme provides students with in-depths skills about geoinformatics and geospatial technologies. It aims at qualifying students to lead initiatives, projects and institutions translating Copernicus data and information into management decisions within a broader Digital Earth vision. Digital earth focuses on the interaction between humans and virtual representations of the world from local to global scales.

Students enrolled in the Copernicus Master in Digital Earth (CDE) will study at two Universities. The first year will be taught at the University of Salzburg building the foundation of skills in Earth Observation and Geoinformatics. For the second year, students can choose between two specialization tracks in GeoDataScience or GeoVisualization, either at the Olomouc University or the University of South Brittany. The former leading in…

The Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) was set up by the General Assembly in 1959 to govern the exploration and use of space for the benefit of all humanity: for peace, security and development. The Committee was tasked with reviewing international cooperation in peaceful uses of outer space, studying space-related activities that could be undertaken by the United Nations, encouraging space research programmes, and studying legal problems arising from the exploration of outer space.

The Committee meets annually in Vienna, Austria, to discuss questions relating to current and future activities in space. Some topics for discussion include maintaining outer space for peaceful purposes, safe operations in orbit, space debris, space weather, the threat from asteroids, the safe use of nuclear power in outer space, climate change, water management, global navigation…

Objectives

At this first stakeholder meeting the Space4Water stakeholder community has an opportunity to get to meet and know each other in person. The workshop's objectives include the identification of

• shared community objectives for the Space4Water community
• approaches to assessing user needs within the community and water related sectors towards the space sector
• approaches to facilitate matchmaking between users with needs and existing gaps and stakeholders who have solutions to (partial) problems

Dates and location

The workshop will take place on 27-28 October 2022 at the Vienna International Centre, with an opportunity to host it online, should COVID prevent travels in October.

Registration

To be considered for participation Space4Water stakeholders and featured professionals can register here. If your organisation…