The EarthCARE Science and Validation Workshop 2026 was successfully held in Oxford,UK on 8–12 June 2026. The workshop provided an open forum for the science community to present and discuss EarthCARE science topics and results, fostering international collaboration in the scientific exploitation of EarthCARE and growing its user community.  Several members of the EARLICOST network actively participated in the workshop, reflecting the network’s contribution to the development of new EarthCARE products and the validation activities supporting the mission.

The workshop focused on a broad range of scientific and validation priorities, including:

• Synergies with past, present, and future satellite missions, as well as ground-based and airborne observations
• Applications for Earth System Models, mesoscale atmospheric models, atmospheric composition models, Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) and cloud models. 
• Novel scientific use cases and applications for EarthCARE within and beyond the cloud, precipitation, aerosol and radiation interaction domain
• Insights into climate process studies and trend assessments, and contributions to essential climate variables (ECVs) 
• Innovative information technologies (including AI) in the exploitation and evolution of EarthCARE’s observations
• Supporting a new, diverse generation of remote sensing atmospheric scientists to explore EarthCARE and associated observations in the future
• Quantitative inter-comparisons and statistical assessments of EarthCARE product quality
• Evaluation of validation achievements and identification of areas for further improvement

The EARLICOST network serves as an important platform for advancing EarthCARE science and fostering collaboration across the atmospheric research community. 

More information on the workshop can be found on the following webpage: https://www.earthcare-science-validation-2026.org/