In 2018, the European Commission launched the Copernicus WEkEO service, a groundbreaking initiative providing seamless, unified access to Copernicus data, advanced processing resources and tools, and relevant additional datasets.
Jointly developed by leading Copernicus institutions: EUMETSAT, ECMWF, EEA, and Mercator Ocean International, WEkEO delivers comprehensive environmental data, user-friendly processing environments, and dedicated expert user support.
Inspired by Wikipedia’s collaborative approach, the name WEkEO (pronounced [wikio]) highlights joint efforts between the four key organisations – EUMETSAT, ECMWF, EEA, and Mercator Ocean International – and the broader user community (“WE”), knowledge advancement and sharing (“k”), and Earth and Environmental Observation (“EO”).
WEkEO’s distinctive strength lies in its innovative distributed architecture, which integrates existing resources from partner institutions. This approach prevents redundancy, cutting costs for taxpayers and reducing environmental impacts associated with additional energy-intensive facilities. This streamlined approach ensures users always access the latest Copernicus data without relying on outdated archives. Additionally, its flexible framework enables seamless integration of new partners, supporting continuous growth and enhanced capabilities.
The name WEkEO (pronounced [wikio]) first refers to the image of the Wikipedia reference portal, and also brings up the idea of a collaborative platform where the first syllable “WE” involves the 3 centres (EUMETSAT, ECMWF and Mercator Ocean) together with all WEkEO’s users. It also refers to the way the WEkEO platform is built with a distributed architecture. The letter “k” is synonymous of Knowledge here. Finally, “EO” stands for “Earth Observation” and for “Environment Observatory”.
WEkEO’s strength relies on its distributed infrastructure built thanks to the Copernicus organisation already in place in the 3 centres: infrastructure and data from the 3 centres are not duplicated but rather linked together, reducing costs for the European tax payer and avoiding the need for new energy-consuming infrastructure. This approach gives users direct access to work with the most up-to-date Copernicus data instead of having to rely on copied, archive datasets. Finally, this federative approach can be extended to other selected external partners, so the system has the potential to continually grow and expand in the future.
