Between 4 and 6 June 2026, the University of Agronomic Sciences and Veterinary Medicine of Bucharest (USAMV) hosted the 15th edition of the Agriculture for Life, Life for Agriculture (A4L) International Conference, one of Romania’s leading events dedicated to agricultural research and innovation.
The conference provided an opportunity to showcase results achieved within the European project EXPERT – Reaching Excellence in Hyperspectral Remote Sensing, funded by the Horizon Europe programme and coordinated by the Romanian Space Agency (ROSA), in partnership with the Italian Space Agency (ASI) and the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
The opening plenary session brought together representatives from academia, research institutions, and national authorities, including the management of ROSA, representatives of the Ministry of Education and Research, USAMV, and the “Gheorghe Ionescu-Șișești” Academy of Agricultural and Forestry Sciences. In this context, several examples of satellite data applications were presented, including soil moisture monitoring, crop condition assessment, irrigation needs estimation, and the analysis of key vegetation and soil parameters.
A dedicated EXPERT project session took place on 5 June during the event “Hyperspectral Remote Sensing Insights for Agriculture”, organised by ROSA. The session was opened by Iulia Dana Negula, EXPERT Project Coordinator at ROSA, and featured presentations by experts from ROSA, ASI (Deodato Tapete), DLR (Daniele Cerra), and Transilvania University of Brașov (AI4AGRI) on the use of hyperspectral data acquired by the PRISMA and EnMAP satellite missions, as well as on their integration with in situ measurements.
During the event, participants were introduced to activities carried out at the experimental site of the Moara Domnească Teaching Farm, where the project team conducts spectrometric measurement campaigns and satellite data validation activities. The presentations highlighted how satellite observations and ground-based measurements can be combined to analyse crop and soil characteristics and support agricultural monitoring.
The event brought together USAMV academic staff, researchers, and students, providing a valuable opportunity for discussions on hyperspectral data processing and interpretation, field calibration and validation methodologies, and the development of Earth Observation-based applications.
Through its participation in the A4L Conference and the organisation of the dedicated EXPERT session, ROSA, ASI, and DLR continued to promote European collaboration in the field of hyperspectral remote sensing and to support the development of a research community capable of exploiting the new generation of satellite data for scientific and environmental applications.
