Establishment of the Geological Service for Europe

GSEU - Geological Survey of Europe - a project carried out by a consortium of geological services of Europe and financed by the EU as a Coordinated Support Action (CSA).

The project consortium is represented by 48 partners from 35 countries.

Mission

The subsurface holds indispensable resources for European industry and society, and, with careful management, will be the key to decarbonising our economy.

To address transnational and continental-scale subsurface problems we need to be able to zoom out and go beyond national borders.

GSEU is the answer.

Vision

The GSEU will be the entry point into a permanent collaborative network of European geological survey organisations with the long-term ambition to provide European institutions, academia, research organisations, national and regional policymakers, industry and citizens with up-to-date, high-quality EU/national level aggregated information on the earth beneath our feet.

Project Objectives

To develop pan-European harmonised data and information services in Europe with a focus on:

  • Critical raw materials
  • Geothermal energy resources and subsurface storage capacities for sustainable energy carriers and CO2 sequestration
  • Groundwater dynamics and quality, geological and climate change information for coastal vulnerability assessment and geological baseline information

To establish the European Centre of Excellence on Sustainable Resource Management to promote the deployment of the United Nations Framework Classification for Resources (UNFC) and the United Nations Resource Management System (UNRMS);

To develop the geological data infrastructure - building on the existing EGDI - to provide permanent access to and dissemination of the data and information services developed under the project and beyond, targeting a wide range of stakeholders, with the specific aim of enabling further innovation and strengthening the market uptake of innovative solutions;

To provide a common European Geological Knowledge Base Platform as the single open access portal to the project results and to the underlying data and information collections and infrastructures of partners at national and regional level;

To further strengthen the network of national and regional geological survey organisations to provide geological knowledge and services in a sustainable manner.

From Science to Society

The realm of the subsurface touches the experience of every European citizen, and the GSEU project stakeholder community is diverse and broadly based at European, national and regional levels. GSEU stakeholders can be defined as “any group that influences or is influenced by the subsurface.” The stakeholder community will be a key driver in defining user requirements and needs in the development of the virtual data and information platform.

A result-driven stakeholder analysis will be carried out, the aim of which is to identify new stakeholders in addition to those already known from previous projects. The identified stakeholders will be mapped and categorised according to: Characteristics, Interests, Attitudes, Influence and Relevance of the knowledge for the partnership and the individual project undertaken by the partnership, with the aim of addressing each category using the most appropriate language and communication channels. The types of ongoing engagement with stakeholders will be diverse, ranging from social media for online communication, online consultations, face-to-face workshops, round table discussions and conferences. A comprehensive information and communication campaign will be implemented throughout the project.