Filenews 6 August 2022 - by Dora Christodoulou
Cyprus is now heading towards the space age. The "vehicle" for this, Eratosthenes, the Centre of Excellence of the Cyprus University of Technology. The project is led by Pafian, Professor of CUT, Diophantus Hatzimitsis, who, speaking to "F", emphasizes that the Consortium of the project for the creation and operation of the Eratosthenes Center of Excellence, consists of the Cyprus University of Technology, the German Aerospace Centre (DLR), the National Observatory of Athens, the German Institute for the Study of the Troposphere (TROPOS) and the Department of Electronic Communications of the Deputy Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digital Policy of the Government of Cyprus.
"Through the research project "ERATOSTHENES: Excellence Research Centre for Earth Surveillance and Space-Based Monitoring of the Environment" with the acronym: "EXCELSIOR", Horizon 2020 Widespread Teaming Phase 2 (www.excelsior2020.eu), a new, autonomous and sustainable Centre of Excellence was created under the name "Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence as a result of the upgrade of the existing Laboratory of Remote Sensing and Geoenvironment, operating in its Department of Civil Engineering and Geoinformatics School of Engineering and Technology of the Cyprus University of Technology since 2007", explains Dr. Hatzimitsis. "The Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence of the Cyprus University of Technology will provide the highest quality of Space, Earth Observation and Geoinformatics services at National, Regional, European and international level."
The aim of the whole effort is for the Eratosthenes Center of Excellence to become a world-class centre of research and innovation for earth observation, points out Diophantus Hadjimitsis - a reference point for Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, which is expected to employ in the next 15 years more than 150 researchers.
"Eratosthenes," its head stressed, "focuses on conducting basic and applied research and facilitating innovation in the fields of remote sensing and space surveillance of the environment."
As Diophantus Hadjimitsis also mentions, an important goal of Eratosthenes is to become a Digital Innovation Hub and a Centre of Research Excellence for Earth Observation in the Eastern Mediterranean region:
"As a Digital Innovation Hub, the Eratosthenes Center of Excellence will create an ecosystem that will combine cutting-edge technologies, data management and processing, pioneering research opportunities, targeted educational services and promotion of entrepreneurship. In order to be dynamic and innovative, as such a hub, it will be based on two main infrastructures, consisting of a satellite earth-based reception station and an atmospheric remote sensing station, as well as additional infrastructure."
The Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence, he explains, adopts a two-axis model. In line with the vision of the Centre of Excellence, the horizontal axis consists of three thematic clusters for continuous excellence in research, namely: Environment and climate (atmosphere, agriculture, water, land), resilient societies (disaster risk reduction, cultural heritage, maritime security and security, energy) and big data management (information extraction, visual exploration and visualisation, information gathering and data aggregation, geoinformatics).
The vertical axis, says Mr. Hatzimitsis, consists of four functional areas: Infrastructure, Research, Education and Entrepreneurship. The Eratosthenes Centre of Excellence will focus on research excellence in five areas of application, such as climate change monitoring, water resource management, disaster risk reduction, access to energy and analysis of large Earth observation data.
