GEO is the Group on Earth Observations, a community of 114 member Countries and 151 Participating organisations working together to develop projects and initiatives to solve global problems. GEO is an intergovernmental partnership that improves availability, access and use of Earth observations for priority areas such as biodiversity, energy, food security, public health, water resources and infrastructure.

A central part of GEO’s Mission is to build the Global Earth Observation Systemof Systems (GEOSS). GEOSS is a set of coordinated, independent Earth observation, information and processing systems that interact and provide access to diverse information for a broad range of users in both public and private sectors.

GEO works to connect the demand for environmental information with the supply of data and information about the Earth that is collected through observing systems and made available by the GEO community. GEO  1) Advocates for the importance of earth observations; 2) Engages with stakeholder communities and foster strategic partnerships; and, 3) Delivers data, information and knowledge enabling stakeholders to improve decision-making processes and inform policy requirements. The GEO vision is well aligned with the vision of Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks (SAON): A connected, collaborative, and comprehensive long-term pan-Arctic Observing System that serves societal needs. ArcticGEOSS is the SAON engaging with the GEO, and produces more data and services for Arctic stakeholders. Arctic PASSION's sister project RNA CoObs outputs have also been used for Arctic GEOSS. 

GEO’s scope statement reads (excerpt) that

“GEO will play a key role in systematically: identifying data needs while advocating the provision of, and access to, multiple sources of data; delivering tools, skills and services to allow the intelligent exploitation of the data by the user communities; and showcasing the value of Earth observation data in order to expand interest in, and usage of, those observations, as well as demonstrate their benefits to society”.

This scope is very well aligned with the work of Arctic PASSION to identify the most impactful Arctic observables, formulate recommendations on how to organize the data streams associated with them, develop observation-based Pilot Services and evaluate the benefit of these.

Arctic GEOSS packages these outcomes of Arctic PASSION for GEO and makes them visible and relevant outside the Arctic realm. The benefits for the data and service providers include that their work will be visible at a high political level, and this attention may benefit their future sustainability.

As the GEO work program and its updates are managed through an international review process, this gives a benchmark for Arctic PASSION actions and encourages to improve them every year. As this sparring comes also from the outside of Europe and outside of our own research domain, these views on our actions often help to widen our perspective of what we can do.