GMES for Regions: Awareness and Access Link

The essence of GRAAL lies in the balance between the two sub-objectives. The members of the GRAAL consortium believe that there is as much a need to develop the awareness of GMES in LRAs as it is necessary to ensure that there are Service Providers in a position to serve this market and to accomplish the Lisbon strategy-related objectives of GMES. It is proposed to achieve this overall objective of GRAAL through the following 5 specific goals: • To characterise the needs of Local and Regional Authorities for GMES services - Demand; • To establish an observatory of the GMES Downstream Service sector - Offer; • To develop a user oriented tool implemented on a Web Platform where demand and offer will meet and where exchanges can take place by using the most advanced web-based technologies; • To implement a Web Platform where Demand and Offer will meet and exchange; • To increase awareness of GMES among LRA and potential Service Providers; • To provide the European Commission and the GMES Community with recommendations on how to foster the development of the GMES downstream service sector, how to increase the awareness of GMES in LRAs and on how to establish a sustainable link between the LRAs (Demand) and the Service Providers (Offer); The aims to increase awareness of the potential of GMES Downstream Services to fulfil the needs of Local and Regional Authorities (LRA) while fostering the development of a sustainable and enlarged industrial base of providers of GMES Downstream Services.