A workshop on the socio-economic benefits of GEO-GEOSS was conducted on July 11-13 at the Joint Research Center in Ispra Italy.  The purpose of the workshop was to identify a program of activities to undertake during 2011-14 to support the GEO 10-year implementation plan ( www.earthobservations.org/documents ) and the assessment of the benefits that can and will be achieved. Such program of activities may include the consolidation of dispersed bodies of literature relevant to the assessment of impacts and benefits of geographic information/earth observation, the evaluation of different methodologies appropriate to undertake such assessments, the gathering of evidence of impacts/benefits in different user communities and societal benefits areas, and outreach activities to develop shared understanding across disciplinary boundaries on value and methods of assessment.

The number of workshop participants was about 25 with focus on practitioners of benefit/impact assessments and related fields. Experts in physical, social and economic sciences were invited to attend. The workshop was organized by JRC, NASA, IIASA and IEEE. See  Benefits Workshop Summary Proceedings .