The Laboratoire d’Optique Atmosphérique (LOA) is a Joint Research Unit of CNRS and University of Lille 1, and has a well-known expertise in remote sensing and study of tropospheric and stratospheric aerosols, clouds and their links with shortwave, longwave radiations and climate. LOA is one of the key laboratories in the world operating the AERONET network (Service National d’Observation PHOTONS) and developing retrieval algorithms, such as GRASP, for ground-based networks (sun-photometer and LIDAR) and space-borne missions (POLDER, MODIS, PARASOL and the future 3MI in 2020). LOA is also one of the key laboratories that created the ICARE satellite database and processing centre as part of the French Data centre for Atmospheric Research, AERIS. Since 2012, LOA is also coordinating the CaPPA (Chemical and Physical Processes in the Atmosphere) project involving 7 laboratories from University of Lille and University of Littoral and Ecole des Mines de Douai. LOA is managing, for long term observation, 2 super sites dedicated to atmospheric characterization located in Lille and Dakar and is contributed to AERONET, NDACC and EARLINET network. LOA, recently, participated in several FP7 and H2020 such as ACTRIS I3 projects