Recapping the Academy February webinars: Insights from Earth
observation and open data maturity across Europe
February has now come to an end, making it a good moment to look back
at the webinars hosted this month by the European Data Portal.
Throughout February, two webinars brought together experts,
policymakers and data practitioners to discuss how European data is
collected, shared and reused. The sessions took place on 13 February,
focusing on Earth observation, and 27 February, dedicated to the
results of the Open Data Maturity (ODM) 2025 report.
[https://data.europa.eu/en/open-data-maturity/2025] 

The first webinar, held on 13 February, explored the topic of Earth
observation. Three expert speakers were invited to share their
knowledge. Thore Fechner
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/thore-fechner-26727a31/], Lead of the
Open Data and Copernicus team at con.terra
[https://www.con-terra.com/home], opened the session with an
introduction to Earth observation data. He explained what this type of
data is, how it is collected, what it can be used for, and where it
can be found on the European Data Portal. Building on this foundation,
Daniel Drăghicescu, [https://www.linkedin.com/in/danieldraghicescu/]
Policy Officer at the European Commission, introduced Destination
Earth [https://destination-earth.eu/], outlining its purpose, key
stakeholders and implementation. The webinar concluded with a deep
dive by Michael Schick
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/michael-schick-25a15b3/] from EUMETSAT
[https://www.eumetsat.int/], who explained digital twins, platform
principles, current service offerings and the role of artificial
intelligence. 

The second webinar, hosted on 27 February, focused on the Open Data
Maturity 2025 report. Arman Behrooz,
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/arman-behrooz/] co-author of the report,
opened the session with an overview of the report, explaining its
purpose, methodology and the main findings of this year’s edition.
This was followed by country presentations from Spain and France.
Alicia Nieto Ramos [https://www.linkedin.com/in/alicia-nieto-ramos/],
representing Spain, shared insights into the country’s ODM results,
highlighting ongoing initiatives as well as key strengths and
challenges. The French perspective was presented by Thanh Ha Le
[https://www.linkedin.com/in/thanh-ha-le-027550a1/], Data Product
Portfolio Manager at data.gouv.fr,
[https://encoded-592c9deb-987b-4562-aa3c-9fa3d37d83e9.uri/https%3a%2f%2fdata.gouv.fr%2c]
who structured her presentation around four dimensions: policy,
portal, data quality and impact, illustrating each with concrete
examples from current practice. 

Both webinars concluded with interactive Q&A sessions, allowing
participants to engage directly with the speakers. Interested in
learning more? The recordings and presentation slides from both the
Earth observation [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ogansrRQ0c] and
ODM 2025 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olppbp_ZePM&t=1s] webinars
are now available on the European Data Portal. Explore the materials
and stay tuned for upcoming webinars and events
[https://data.europa.eu/en/news-events/events] within the European
open data community! 

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Publication Date/Time
2026-03-09T09:00:00+00:00
Learn more on the impact of Earth observation data and reporting on
member states and their data portals