How can data be transformed into action to address climate change and environmental challenges? This question guided RedCLARA’s presentation at AmeriGEO Week 2025, held in Bogotá, Colombia, from August 11 to 15. In the workshop “Data-Driven Environmental Intelligence: The Strategic Role of RedCLARA, Academic Networks, and Copernicus Use Cases,” participants learned how the region’s academic networks (RNIES) turn information into real solutions that improve research, environmental management, and decision-making, showing how important it is for different groups in the digital ecosystem to work together.
Within this framework, the Copernicus Academy, led by RedCLARA under the BELLA II project, was presented. It promotes training and strategic use of Earth observation data in Latin America and the Caribbean, fostering collaboration among universities, research centers, companies, and governments. “The Copernicus Academy demonstrates how regional coordination can transform data into useful knowledge and concrete actions. RedCLARA plays a key role in facilitating this collaboration and strengthening capacities,” highlighted Mónica Sánchez, Coordinator of Academic Development and Partnerships, who led the session.
During the workshop, they presented the progress of the Copernicus Academy in Mexico, Costa Rica, and Ecuador, along with the winning projects from the Guatemala ideathon, including a plan to use special plants to clean up pollutants in the Motagua River basin by using data from Copernicus satellites.
The session also highlighted the portfolio of services offered by RedCLARA and BELLA II—tools that facilitate data access, strengthen training, and promote interoperability among academic and research institutions in the region. These services help countries use shared digital resources better, improve teamwork across borders, manage scientific projects more efficiently, and ensure important connections that are necessary for creating local solutions to environmental, technological, and social problems.
“RedCLARA’s participation in AmeriGEO Week 2025 reinforces its role as a coordinator of academic networks in Latin America and the Caribbean, demonstrating how regional collaboration and the strategic use of Earth observation data can be transformed into concrete solutions for environmental and climate challenges. "This platform also boosts international teamwork, encourages science based on data, and makes RedCLARA an important center for promoting valuable connections, new ideas, and sustainable growth in the region," Sánchez emphasized.
AmeriGEO, established in 2014 as the regional group of the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) for the Americas, seeks to promote collaboration among countries in the use of Earth observations and support local, national, and regional decision-making with coordinated, comprehensive, and sustainable geospatial information.
