Yves-Louis DESNOS is Head of the Data Applications Division in the ESA EO Programme Directorate, Frascati, Italy. He is in charge of the EO Science for Society element of the Future Earth Observation envelope programme. His current activities encompass new scientific research, developing user applications, fostering industry growth and leveraging on latest platforms technology. He graduated as Engineer at E.S.T.A.C.A.(1982), obtained a specialisation degree in Space at E.N.S.A.E (1983) and started his career at Thomson-CSF as RADAR system engineer (1984). He joined ESA-ESTEC as RADAR engineer (1989) and was appointed ASAR principal engineer in the ENVISAT project (1996). He was chairman of CEOS WGCV SAR subgroup (1996-2000) and chairman of CEOS WGCV (2000-2003). Since 2006, he is also ESA Senior Advisor on SAR technologies and applications. In 2014, he received the P.R. China’s Friendship Award for the Dragon cooperation.