The ‘urban’ component of the French Land Data and Services Centre (THEIA)

The THEIA data and services center has been created with the objective of increasing the use of space data by both the science community and the public actors. THEIA is structuring the French science community through 1) a mutualized Service and Data Infrastructure (SDI) distributed between several centers, allowing access to a variety of products; 2) the setup of Regional Animation Networks (RAN) to federate users (scientists and public / private actors) and 3) Scientific Expertise Centres (SEC) clustering virtual research groups on a thematic domain. A strong relationship between SECs and RANs is being developed to both disseminate the outputs to the user communities and aggregate the user needs. The research works carried out for urban studies in three SECs are presented. The works are organized around the design and development of value-added products and services.