Enabling far-reaching living labs through regional Digital Twins

The current and future landscape of our societies is predominantly governed by urgent (and interconnected) resilience challenges such as climate change adaptation, resource efficiency and sustainable WEFE nexus management. To overcome those challenges, the European Union (EU) has set the blueprints of transformational changes with the European Green Deal, that builds on research and innovation to meet the objectives. Despite advances in the field, the uptake pace of relevant innovations is often hindered by the narrow communication paths among research, public administration and citizens -who are the end beneficiaries. This work utilizes the capabilities of Digital Twins (DT) to connect hard and soft sensors with environmental and infrastructure models at regional scale, to create a central hub for related data and knowledge to be turned into action in a co-creation process. By building on existing data driven platform initiatives by the Ministry of Environment and Energy and the Decentralized Administration of Attica, we build the DT of the Region of Attica to provide: (i) access to relevant datasets (environmental, climatic, uses of resources etc.), (ii) access to relevant climate adaptation services (e.g. climate services, services to farmers, services to municipalities), (iii) links to local and regional Communities of Practice (CoP) and (iv) a repository for demonstrations of climate adaptation innovations within the region. This knowledge collaboration scheme forms a living lab constellation that allows rapid and far-reaching sharing, accumulation, transformation, and co-creation of knowledge among the administration parties and local case studies’ stakeholders. Like ancient sailors who used constellations to navigate along route, our modern societies can use the living lab constellations of the regional DT to chart evidence-based pathways towards climate resilience and sustainable WEFE management. This dynamic and expandable ecosystem aims to speed up the introduction of climate adaptation innovations, connect knowledge and bring research closer to practice by allowing for a re-wiring of culture, where science and co-creation are perceived as necessary for successful policy making. 

Acknowledgment: This work is supported by IMPETUS research project that has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreement No. 101037084.