Edinburgh's Ecometrica joins £5m space programme

The firm's chief executive is Gary Davis. Picture: Neil Hanna.

Edinburgh-based satellite mapping technology company Ecometrica has signed up to a national programme to access expertise from what is billed as one of Britain’s top space research institutions.

Ecometrica has joined the £4.8 million Sprint (Space Research and Innovation Network for Technology) scheme.

The business, whose chief executive is Gary Davis, will work with Sprint partner the University of Surrey to analyse satellite data for monitoring sustainable development goals and climate resilience. The project will develop scalable methods to unite earth observation data from different sources (including commercial products) to monitor vulnerability to and recovery from natural disasters.

This will specifically apply to case studies from flooding in Mexico and natural and man-made events in Brazil.

Richard Tipper, executive chairman at Ecometrica, said: 'We look forward to a long and fruitful collaboration.' Picture: contributed.

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Richard Murphy, director of the Centre for Environment and Sustainability at the University of Surrey, hailed Ecometrica as a “pioneering” UK company. “Working with Ecometrica through Sprint is a brilliant opportunity to apply our complementary interests to improve global sustainability and resilience.”

Sprint is being delivered by a consortium including the University of Edinburgh, and the Scottish Funding Council is among its supporters.