Impact of ICOS on technology & innovation

ICOS drives technical innovation as well as innovative data approach, for example in using FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, Reusable) principles in environmental research data. ICOS supports scientific developments and adapts to the demands of its scientific community. All ICOS stations provide high-quality observations using state-of-the-art technologies.

ICOS is working on providing tools for interactive analysis of data and model results, thereby securing reproducibility by using web-based technologies and direct access to ICOS data and elaborated products. Through this, ICOS will enable transparent analyses, interactive collaboration of modellers and data providers, and connections to computing resources in the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC).

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High data standards drives technological improvement

ICOS’s effectiveness in unifying the European climate science field has already had effects on technology and innovation. The bigger the ICOS network is, the bigger its impact on technology and innovation. ICOS is a single large procurer with high demands, so its industrial partners indicate that high ICOS standards drive them to develop new or improved measurement methods and hardware innovations and to increase their product quality. According to the suppliers of sensors and measurement instrumentation, having ICOS as their client counts as a quality certificate.

Supporting education, research & innovation

It is important for ICOS to promote technological developments and demonstrations related to greenhouse gases by linking together research, education and innovation. One of ICOS’ key features is the possibility of dynamically implementing technological and state-of-the-art scientific upgrades by introducing new techniques, instruments and observed variables.

Examples of industrial cooperation

Examples of cooperation between the industry and ICOS can be found in all domains. According to the Impact Assessment report, the industrial partners expect that the influence of ICOS on their market will increase when ICOS starts to publish data measured with their products.

The ATC metrology lab has built collaborations with industrial companies to test emerging technologies. Innovative ICOS ATC software is used by ICOS Principal Investigators for quality control and for station network management systems.

The ETC and Carbon Portal cooperated with private companies in the development of a specific logger for the automatic data-submission process.

The OTC has partnered with a private company to validate the ICOS ocean data from fixed ocean stations using a wind-powered, fully autonomous ocean drone (Saildrone). OTC is also engaging instrument suppliers to an inter-comparison campaign to reach a high level of standardisation.